IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v7y2016i1d10.1038_ncomms13788.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transcriptional bursting is intrinsically caused by interplay between RNA polymerases on DNA

Author

Listed:
  • Keisuke Fujita

    (Laboratory for Cell Dynamics Observation, Quantitative Biology Center
    Soft Biosystem Group, Laboratories for Nanobiology, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University)

  • Mitsuhiro Iwaki

    (Laboratory for Cell Dynamics Observation, Quantitative Biology Center
    Soft Biosystem Group, Laboratories for Nanobiology, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University)

  • Toshio Yanagida

    (Laboratory for Cell Dynamics Observation, Quantitative Biology Center
    Soft Biosystem Group, Laboratories for Nanobiology, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University)

Abstract

Cell-to-cell variability plays a critical role in cellular responses and decision-making in a population, and transcriptional bursting has been broadly studied by experimental and theoretical approaches as the potential source of cell-to-cell variability. Although molecular mechanisms of transcriptional bursting have been proposed, there is little consensus. An unsolved key question is whether transcriptional bursting is intertwined with many transcriptional regulatory factors or is an intrinsic characteristic of RNA polymerase on DNA. Here we design an in vitro single-molecule measurement system to analyse the kinetics of transcriptional bursting. The results indicate that transcriptional bursting is caused by interplay between RNA polymerases on DNA. The kinetics of in vitro transcriptional bursting is quantitatively consistent with the gene-nonspecific kinetics previously observed in noisy gene expression in vivo. Our kinetic analysis based on a cellular automaton model confirms that arrest and rescue by trailing RNA polymerase intrinsically causes transcriptional bursting.

Suggested Citation

  • Keisuke Fujita & Mitsuhiro Iwaki & Toshio Yanagida, 2016. "Transcriptional bursting is intrinsically caused by interplay between RNA polymerases on DNA," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 1-10, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms13788
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13788
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13788
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms13788?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ferdinand Greiss & Nicolas Lardon & Leonie Schütz & Yoav Barak & Shirley S. Daube & Elmar Weinhold & Vincent Noireaux & Roy Bar-Ziv, 2024. "A genetic circuit on a single DNA molecule as an autonomous dissipative nanodevice," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms13788. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.