Work

Functional Roles of Pulsing in Genetic Circuits

Year: 2013

Type: review

Abstract: A fundamental problem in biology is to understand how genetic circuits implement core cellular functions. Time-lapse microscopy techniques are beginning to provide a direct view of circuit dynamics in individual living cells. Unexpectedly, we are discovering that key transcription and regulatory factors pulse on and off repeatedly, and often stochastically, even when cells are maintained in constant conditions. This type of spontaneous dynamic behavior is pervasive, appearing in diverse cell types from microbes to mammalian cells. Here, we review recent work showing how pulsing is generated and controlled by underlying regulatory circuits and how it provides critical capabilities to cells in stress response, signaling, and development. A major theme is the ability of pulsing to enable time-based regulation analogous to strategies used in engineered systems. Thus, pulsatile dynamics is emerging as a central, and still largely unexplored, layer of temporal organization in the cell.

Source: Science

DOI: 10.1126/science.1239999

Authors: Joe H. Levine, Yihan Lin, Michael B. Elowitz

Institutions: California Institute of Technology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Language: English

Topic: Gene Regulatory Network Analysis

Subfield: Molecular Biology

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, National Institutes of Health, Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Institute of General Medical Sciences

Awards: Biological Diversity: Generation, Control and Exploitation, Genetic Interactions and Synthetic Population Biology, Stochastic Pulsing in Microbial Regulation and Differentiation