Bursty Gene Expression in Single Cells and Expanding Populations: A Discrete Approach
Poljovka, J.; Zabaikina, I.; Bokes, P.; Singh, A.
Show abstract
Bursty protein production is a key source of gene expression noise. In this study, we analyze a Markovian model of cellular protein dynamics, where proteins are produced in geometrically distributed bursts. Extending this model, we incorporate a feedback mechanism by assuming that higher protein levels reduce both cell growth and protein decay rates. We study both single-cell dynamics and an expanding cell population. Without feedback, the protein level follows a negative binomial distribution with the same parameters in both cases. With feedback, however, single-cell and population-level distributions differ, each expressible as a mixture of two negative binomial distributions with framework-dependent parameters. Using numerical integration of the master and population balance equations, we calculate the time-dependent distributions in both settings. This work extends previous continuous models and provides new insights into how population expansion influences intrinsic cellular heterogeneity.
Matching journals
The top 6 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.
Similar papers in this journal
Similar papers in this journal
Similar papers in this journal
"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.