Molecular Mechanism behind the Noise in Gene Expression

What is it about?

We explored the mechanisms behind the enigmatic phenomenon of "noise" in gene expression in higher eukaryotes, where it is seen that the genes are not expressed in a steady and continuous streams but are expressed in episodic bursts. We show that this occurs because the regulatory regions of genes are normally hidden in impervious chromatin and random “breathing” events in chromatin provide intermittent access to factors that turn the genes on, rendering the gene expression intermittent.

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Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This study reveals that the natural compaction of chromatin is responsible for noisy gene expression and also shows a route to selectively reducing the transcriptional noise from particular genes which is otherwise unavoidable. This approach may be useful for constructing "low noise" artificial gene regulatory pathways and circuits in synthetic biology.