title: Continuous control in bacterial regulatory circuits.
abstract: We show that for two well-characterized regulatory circuits in Escherichia coli, Tn10 tetracycline resistance and porin osmoregulation, the transcriptional outputs in individual cells are graded functions of the applied stimuli. These systems are therefore examples of naturally occurring regulatory circuits that exhibit continuous control of transcription. Surprisingly, however, we find that porin osmoregulation is open loop; i.e., the porin expression level does not feed back into the regulatory circuit. This mode of control is particularly interesting for an organism such as E. coli, which proliferates in diverse environments, and raises important questions regarding the biologically relevant inputs and outputs for this system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Batchelor
authors.forename: Thomas J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Silhavy
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Goulian
mesh_terms: D003470:Culture Media; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements / Q000235:genetics*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism*; D017353:Gene Deletion; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D018272:Porins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D013753:Tetracycline Resistance / Q000235:genetics*; D014158:Transcription, Genetic; D014882:Water-Electrolyte Balance
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D018272:Porins