Mehta Pankaj, Mukhopadhyay Ranjan, Wingreen Ned S
Department of Molecular Biology and Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Phys Biol. 2008 Jun 16;5(2):026005. doi: 10.1088/1478-3975/5/2/026005.
There is increasing experimental evidence that cells can utilize biochemical noise to switch probabilistically between distinct gene-expression states. In this paper, we demonstrate that such noise-driven switching is dominated by tails of probability distributions and is therefore exponentially sensitive to changes in physiological parameters such as transcription and translation rates. Exponential sensitivity limits the robustness of noise-driven switching, suggesting cells may use other mechanisms in order to switch reliably. We discuss our results in the context of competence in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis.
越来越多的实验证据表明,细胞可以利用生化噪声在不同的基因表达状态之间进行概率性切换。在本文中,我们证明这种噪声驱动的切换由概率分布的尾部主导,因此对转录和翻译速率等生理参数的变化呈指数敏感。指数敏感性限制了噪声驱动切换的稳健性,这表明细胞可能会使用其他机制来进行可靠的切换。我们在枯草芽孢杆菌感受态的背景下讨论了我们的结果。