Schwanhäusser et al. 2011 — Global quantification of mammalian gene expression control

Citation: Björn Schwanhäusser, Dorothea Busse, Na Li, Gunnar Dittmar, Johannes Schuchhardt, Jana Wolf, Wei Chen, Matthias Selbach. “Global quantification of mammalian gene expression control.” Nature 473:337–342, 2011. PMID 21593866. DOI 10.1038/nature10098.

Full text access: No PMC record found (paywalled at Nature). Verified via BioNumbers ID 106377 (https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=106377) which cross-references this paper explicitly. Anna’s Archive search (2026-04-25) did not index this journal article. Key value (median t½ = 46 h) confirmed independently through BioNumbers.

Numbers that matter

ParameterValueCell type / methodSource
Median protein t½46 hours (~1.9 days)NIH 3T3 mouse fibroblasts, SILACBioNumbers ID 106377 citing Schwanhäusser 2011
Measurement methodSILAC (stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture)NIH 3T3
Genes quantified> 5,000Proteome-wide
Median mRNA t½~9 hoursNIH 3T3PubMed abstract
Primary regulatory levelTranslation rate (predominant control of protein abundance)

Core finding

SILAC-based parallel metabolic labeling measured absolute mRNA and protein abundance and turnover across >5,000 genes in NIH 3T3 mouse fibroblasts. Median protein t½ = 46 h ≈ 1.9 d. mRNA and protein half-lives showed no correlation. Protein abundance is “predominantly controlled at the level of translation” rather than transcription. This is the canonical reference for proteome-median protein stability in mammalian cells.

Relevance for RBM24_HL_D modeling

RBM24_HL_D = 2 days in mrna_lnp_pkpd_integration*.py is anchored to this paper’s proteome-median value (46 h ≈ 1.9 d). This is NOT an RBM24-specific measurement — RBM24 protein half-life in OHCs has never been measured. The 2-day value is a defensible proteome-median stand-in.

Caveats:

  1. NIH 3T3 fibroblasts ≠ OHCs (different cell type, different proteostasis load)
  2. RBM24 is an RNA-binding protein; RNA-binding proteins can have non-median stability
  3. The median means ~50% of proteins have t½ < 46 h and ~50% have longer

Connections