Stochastic modeling of regulation of gene expression by multiple small RNAs

TL;DR

This paper develops a stochastic model to understand how multiple small RNAs regulate gene expression noise, revealing that they can independently control mean and variance, unlike single sRNA regulation.

Contribution

It provides exact analytic solutions for the protein distribution under multiple sRNA regulation, offering new insights into noise control in gene expression.

Findings

Multiple sRNAs enable independent control of mean and variance.

Exact expressions for protein distribution are derived.

Multiple sRNAs fine-tune gene expression noise.

Abstract

A wealth of new research has highlighted the critical roles of small RNAs (sRNAs) in diverse processes such as quorum sensing and cellular responses to stress. The pathways controlling these processes often have a central motif comprising of a master regulator protein whose expression is controlled by multiple sRNAs. However, the regulation of stochastic gene expression of a single target gene by multiple sRNAs is currently not well understood. To address this issue, we analyze a stochastic model of regulation of gene expression by multiple sRNAs. For this model, we derive exact analytic results for the regulated protein distribution including compact expressions for its mean and variance. The derived results provide novel insights into the roles of multiple sRNAs in fine-tuning the noise in gene expression. In particular, we show that, in contrast to regulation by a single sRNA, multiple sRNAs provide a mechanism for independently controlling the mean and variance of the regulated protein distribution.