Origin and Evolution of Translation: A Unifying Perspective Across Time

Translation is a foundational biological process that decodes genetic information provided by an mRNA template. Over the past decade major advancements have been made towards understanding the origins and early evolution of translation. There remain two critical gaps: First, we lack a coherent view of how translation factors emerged and co-evolved to regulate the cellular protein synthesis. Second, we know little about the evolutionary and environmental basis of variation and complexity of translation across the tree of life. Here we present a comprehensive survey of translation machinery diversity and similarity across bacteria, eukaryotes, and archaea with particular emphasis on the translation factors and ribosome. Finally, we interrogate translation at the sub-ribosomal, ribosomal and cellular scales and highlight research questions for the origin and early evolution of translation studies. The broad array of perspectives that range from the molecular to ecosystem levels may provide an opportunity to advance our understanding of the origins, complexity, and evolution of this fascinating machinery.