  The rate of mRNA translation depends on the initiation, elongation, and
termination rates of ribosomes along the mRNA. These rates depend on many
"local" factors like the abundance of free ribosomes and tRNA molecules in the
vicinity of the mRNA molecule. All these factors are stochastic and their
experimental measurements are also noisy. An important question is how protein
production in the cell is affected by this considerable variability. We develop
a new theoretical framework for addressing this question by modeling the rates
as identically and independently distributed random variables and using tools
from random matrix theory to analyze the steady-state production rate. The
analysis reveals a principle of universality: the average protein production
rate depends only on the of the set of possible values that the random variable
may attain. This explains how total protein production can be stabilized
despite the overwhelming stochasticticity underlying cellular processes.
