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Dynamics of transcription and translation in Escherichia coli at the single cell, single molecule level

By: André S. Ribeiro
From: Tampere University of Technology, Finland
At: Instituto de Investigação Interdisciplinar, Anfiteatro
[2010-10-21] 11:30

Recent developments in both single cell measurements and delayed stochastic modeling techniques of the process of transcription and translation in E. coli have provided new insights on how cells regulate the temporal levels of mRNA and proteins. We first present a multi-delayed stochastic model of transcription and translation able to match measurements of protein production at the single molecule level. Using this model, we examine the role of the promoter open complex formation as a regulator of transcriptional dynamics. We then describe a new delayed stochastic model of transcription and translation at the single nucleotide level, with which we study the effects of transcriptional pausing in the mean and noise of mRNA temporal levels. We also present recent temporal measurements of mRNA production at the single molecule level using the MS2-GFP expression system and confocal microscopy, for varying induction strengths. From these, we characterize the mean, noise, and spatial distributions of mRNA molecules in individual cells, and the role of riboswitches as regulatory mechanisms in gene expression.