Noise Expands the Response Range of the Bacillus subtilis Competence Circuit

Noise Expands the Response Range of the Bacillus subtilis Competence Circuit

Gene regulatory circuits must contend with intrinsic noise that arises due to finite numbers of proteins. While some circuits act to reduce this noise, others appear to exploit it. A striking example is the competence circuit in Bacillus subtilis, which exhibits much larger noise in the duration of...

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Main Authors: Mugler, Andrew, Kittisopikul, Mark, Hayden, Luke, Liu, Jintao, Wiggins, Chris H., Süel, Gürol M., Walczak, Aleksandra M.
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science 2016
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4803322/
id pubmed-4803322
recordtype oai_dc
spelling pubmed-48033222016-03-25 Noise Expands the Response Range of the Bacillus subtilis Competence Circuit Mugler, Andrew Kittisopikul, Mark Hayden, Luke Liu, Jintao Wiggins, Chris H. Süel, Gürol M. Walczak, Aleksandra M. Research Article Gene regulatory circuits must contend with intrinsic noise that arises due to finite numbers of proteins. While some circuits act to reduce this noise, others appear to exploit it. A striking example is the competence circuit in Bacillus subtilis, which exhibits much larger noise in the duration of its competence events than a synthetically constructed analog that performs the same function. Here, using stochastic modeling and fluorescence microscopy, we show that this larger noise allows cells to exit terminal phenotypic states, which expands the range of stress levels to which cells are responsive and leads to phenotypic heterogeneity at the population level. This is an important example of how noise confers a functional benefit in a genetic decision-making circuit. Public Library of Science 2016-03-22 /pmc/articles/PMC4803322/ /pubmed/27003682 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004793 Text en © 2016 Mugler et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
repository_type Open Access Journal
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building NCBI PubMed
collection Online Access
language English
format Online
author Mugler, Andrew
Kittisopikul, Mark
Hayden, Luke
Liu, Jintao
Wiggins, Chris H.
Süel, Gürol M.
Walczak, Aleksandra M.
spellingShingle Mugler, Andrew
Kittisopikul, Mark
Hayden, Luke
Liu, Jintao
Wiggins, Chris H.
Süel, Gürol M.
Walczak, Aleksandra M.
Noise Expands the Response Range of the Bacillus subtilis Competence Circuit
author_facet Mugler, Andrew
Kittisopikul, Mark
Hayden, Luke
Liu, Jintao
Wiggins, Chris H.
Süel, Gürol M.
Walczak, Aleksandra M.
author_sort Mugler, Andrew
title Noise Expands the Response Range of the Bacillus subtilis Competence Circuit
title_short Noise Expands the Response Range of the Bacillus subtilis Competence Circuit
title_full Noise Expands the Response Range of the Bacillus subtilis Competence Circuit
title_fullStr Noise Expands the Response Range of the Bacillus subtilis Competence Circuit
title_full_unstemmed Noise Expands the Response Range of the Bacillus subtilis Competence Circuit
title_sort noise expands the response range of the bacillus subtilis competence circuit
description Gene regulatory circuits must contend with intrinsic noise that arises due to finite numbers of proteins. While some circuits act to reduce this noise, others appear to exploit it. A striking example is the competence circuit in Bacillus subtilis, which exhibits much larger noise in the duration of its competence events than a synthetically constructed analog that performs the same function. Here, using stochastic modeling and fluorescence microscopy, we show that this larger noise allows cells to exit terminal phenotypic states, which expands the range of stress levels to which cells are responsive and leads to phenotypic heterogeneity at the population level. This is an important example of how noise confers a functional benefit in a genetic decision-making circuit.
publisher Public Library of Science
publishDate 2016
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4803322/
_version_ 1613556303408398336

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