Effects of cell cycle noise on excitable gene circuits

TL;DR

This paper investigates how cell cycle noise influences gene circuit behavior, revealing that cell division timing significantly affects state transitions and oscillatory dynamics, with implications for understanding gene regulation variability.

Contribution

It introduces a stochastic model explaining the concentration effect post-cell division and quantifies temporal correlations in genetic oscillators due to cell cycle noise.

Findings

Transitions occur mainly after cell division

Transcriptional delay amplifies concentration effects

Cell division induces measurable temporal correlations

Abstract

We assess the impact of cell cycle noise on gene circuit dynamics. For bistable genetic switches and excitable circuits, we find that transitions between metastable states most likely occur just after cell division and that this concentration effect intensifies in the presence of transcriptional delay. We explain this concentration effect with a 3-states stochastic model. For genetic oscillators, we quantify the temporal correlations between daughter cells induced by cell division. Temporal correlations must be captured properly in order to accurately quantify noise sources within gene networks.