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Homeostasis of protein and mRNA concentrations in growing cells

Author

Listed:
  • Jie Lin

    (Harvard University)

  • Ariel Amir

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

Many experiments show that the numbers of mRNA and protein are proportional to the cell volume in growing cells. However, models of stochastic gene expression often assume constant transcription rate per gene and constant translation rate per mRNA, which are incompatible with these experiments. Here, we construct a minimal gene expression model to fill this gap. Assuming ribosomes and RNA polymerases are limiting in gene expression, we show that the numbers of proteins and mRNAs both grow exponentially during the cell cycle and that the concentrations of all mRNAs and proteins achieve cellular homeostasis; the competition between genes for the RNA polymerases makes the transcription rate independent of the genome number. Furthermore, by extending the model to situations in which DNA (mRNA) can be saturated by RNA polymerases (ribosomes) and becomes limiting, we predict a transition from exponential to linear growth of cell volume as the protein-to-DNA ratio increases.

Suggested Citation

  • Jie Lin & Ariel Amir, 2018. "Homeostasis of protein and mRNA concentrations in growing cells," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-06714-z
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06714-z
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    Cited by:

    1. Renaud Dessalles & Vincent Fromion & Philippe Robert, 2020. "Models of protein production along the cell cycle: An investigation of possible sources of noise," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(1), pages 1-25, January.
    2. Kirill Sechkar & Harrison Steel & Giansimone Perrino & Guy-Bart Stan, 2024. "A coarse-grained bacterial cell model for resource-aware analysis and design of synthetic gene circuits," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-17, December.
    3. Qirun Wang & Jie Lin, 2021. "Heterogeneous recruitment abilities to RNA polymerases generate nonlinear scaling of gene expression with cell volume," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, December.
    4. Harsh Vashistha & Joanna Jammal-Touma & Kulveer Singh & Yitzhak Rabin & Hanna Salman, 2023. "Bacterial cell-size changes resulting from altering the relative expression of Min proteins," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.
    5. Mareike Berger & Pieter Rein ten Wolde, 2022. "Robust replication initiation from coupled homeostatic mechanisms," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.

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