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Information integration and energy expenditure in gene regulation #MMPMID27368104
Estrada J; Wong F; DePace A; Gunawardena J
Cell 2016[Jun]; 166 (1): 234-44 PMID27368104show ga
The quantitative concepts used to reason about gene regulation largely derive from bacterial studies. We show that this bacterial paradigm cannot explain the sharp expression of a canonical developmental gene in response to a regulating transcription factor (TF). In the absence of energy expenditure, with regulatory DNA at thermodynamic equilibrium, information integration across multiple TF binding sites can generate the required sharpness but with strong constraints on the resulting ?higher-order cooperativities?. Even with such integration there is a ?Hopfield barrier? to sharpness, represented, for n TF binding sites, by the Hill function with Hill coefficient n. If, however, energy is expended to maintain regulatory DNA away from thermodynamic equilibrium, as in kinetic proofreading, this barrier can be breached and greater sharpness achieved. Our approach is grounded in fundamental physics, leads to testable experimental predictions and suggests how a quantitative paradigm for eukaryotic gene regulation can be formulated.