Raser Jonathan M, O'Shea Erin K
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California-San Francisco (UCSF), 600 16th Street, Room S472D, San Francisco, CA 94143-2240, USA.
Science. 2004 Jun 18;304(5678):1811-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1098641. Epub 2004 May 27.
Noise, or random fluctuations, in gene expression may produce variability in cellular behavior. To measure the noise intrinsic to eukaryotic gene expression, we quantified the differences in expression of two alleles in a diploid cell. We found that such noise is gene-specific and not dependent on the regulatory pathway or absolute rate of expression. We propose a model in which the balance between promoter activation and transcription influences the variability in messenger RNA levels. To confirm the predictions of our model, we identified both cis- and trans-acting mutations that alter the noise of gene expression. These mutations suggest that noise is an evolvable trait that can be optimized to balance fidelity and diversity in eukaryotic gene expression.
基因表达中的噪声，即随机波动，可能会导致细胞行为的变异性。为了测量真核基因表达固有的噪声，我们对二倍体细胞中两个等位基因的表达差异进行了量化。我们发现，这种噪声具有基因特异性，并不依赖于调控途径或绝对表达速率。我们提出了一个模型，其中启动子激活与转录之间的平衡会影响信使RNA水平的变异性。为了证实我们模型的预测，我们鉴定了改变基因表达噪声的顺式和反式作用突变。这些突变表明，噪声是一种可进化的特性，可以进行优化，以平衡真核基因表达中的保真度和多样性。
