Practice question

Average protein synthesis rate in rapidly growing bacteria like E. coli ranges about 12 to 21 amino acids per second, often summarized as 2 to 20 aa per second accounting for stress, rare codons and regulation. Fast rate enabled by high concentration of EF-Tu GTP aminoacyl-tRNA ternary complexes, coupled transcription-translation without nucleus, efficient ribosome recycling, and optimized codon usage matching abundant tRNAs. This supports generation time near 20 minutes requiring massive ribosome number. Eukaryotes are slower due to additional control layers, chromatin, and compartmentalization, around 2 to 4 aa per second.