Sommaire:

Gene expression is the process of protein synthesis inside living cells that happens via two steps: transcription (genetic code is copied to mRNA) and translation ( protein is produced from mRNA ). The levels of mRNA and proteins can exhibit remarkable variation across genetically identical cells even under the same external environment due to inherent stochastic chemical reactions that occur in low molecular numbers.

Transcription factor proteins (TFs) that regulate the transcription process by binding to their specific regulatory sites, can also bind to a wide range of genomic sites with high affinity. Binding to such “decoys” has been mostly ignored in the past in the context of their regulatory roles. We investigate how the decoy binding can affect the stochastic gene expression for oscillatory and non-oscillatory gene expressions using linear noise approximation, stability analysis, and kinetic monte carlo simulations. Our study shows decoy can be crucial to regulating stochastic gene expression dynamics.

Reference:
1) Enhancement of gene expression noise from transcription factor binding to genomic decoy sites, S Dey, M Soltani, and A Singh, Scientific Report (2020)

2) Diverse role of decoys on emergence and precision of oscillations in a biomolecular clock, Biophysical Journal, S Dey and A Singh (2021)

Pour plus d'informations, merci de contacter Pitard E.