title: Transcriptional dynamics with time-dependent reaction rates.
abstract: Transcription is the first step in the process of gene regulation that controls cell response to varying environmental conditions. Transcription is a stochastic process, involving synthesis and degradation of mRNAs, that can be modeled as a birth-death process. We consider a generic stochastic model, where the fluctuating environment is encoded in the time-dependent reaction rates. We obtain an exact analytical expression for the mRNA probability distribution and are able to analyze the response for arbitrary time-dependent protocols. Our analytical results and stochastic simulations confirm that the transcriptional machinery primarily act as a low-pass filter. We also show that depending on the system parameters, the mRNA levels in a cell population can show synchronous/asynchronous fluctuations and can deviate from Poisson statistics.
authors: Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata Mohanpur 741246, India.
authors: Shubhendu
authors: S
authors: Nandi
authors: Anandamohan
authors: A
authors: Ghosh
mesh_terms: D007700:Kinetics; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics*; D013269:Stochastic Processes; D013997:Time Factors; D014158:Transcription, Genetic / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger