Multi-species stochastic models: small RNA regulation of gene expression

TL;DR

This paper develops an exact analytical model for gene expression regulation by small RNAs, highlighting the impact of transcriptional bursting on protein levels and demonstrating the limitations of deterministic models.

Contribution

It provides an exact solution for mRNA distribution in a stochastic gene regulation model involving small RNAs, emphasizing the importance of stochastic effects.

Findings

Exact steady state distribution for mRNA in strong pairing limit

Transcriptional bursting causes significant deviations from deterministic predictions

Model applicable to various multi-species gene regulation systems

Abstract

The processes, resulting in the transcription of RNA, are intrinsically noisy. It was observed experimentally that the synthesis of mRNA molecules is driven by short, burst-like, events. An accurate prediction of the protein level often requires one to take these fluctuations into account. Here, we consider the stochastic model of gene expression regulated by small RNAs. Small RNA post-transcriptional regulation is achieved by base-pairing with mRNA. We show that in a strong pairing limit the mRNA steady state distribution can be determined exactly. The obtained analytical results reveal large discrepancies in the deterministic description, due to transcriptional bursting. The proposed approach is expected to work for a large variety of multi-species models.