title: Random signal fluctuations can reduce random fluctuations in regulated components of chemical regulatory networks.
abstract: Many intracellular components are present in low copy numbers per cell and subject to feedback control. We use chemical master equations to analyze a negative feedback system where species X and S regulate each other's synthesis with standard intracellular kinetics. For a given number of X-molecules, S-variation can be significant. We show that this signal noise does not necessarily increase X-variation as previously thought but, surprisingly, can be necessary to reduce it below a Poissonian limit. The principle resembles Stochastic Resonance in that signal noise improves signal detection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University, BMC, Box 596, Uppsala, 75124 Sweden. Johann.Paulsson@icm.uu.se
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Paulsson
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ehrenberg
mesh_terms: D004261:DNA Replication; D005246:Feedback; D018628:Gene Dosage; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D007700:Kinetics; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010957:Plasmids / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D016008:Statistical Distributions; D013269:Stochastic Processes