Effect of reduced gene copy number on transcription factor-regulated gene expression

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  • 6 February 2006
Abstract
In diploid organisms, the set of genes in a cell has two identical copies. Genes synthesize proteins which are produced in reduced amounts when one gene copy is lost through mutation. In this Letter, we propose a stochastic model of transcription factor (TF)-regu lated gene expression. We use an analytical, stochastic formalism to show that a decrease in the copy number of the gene synthesizing the TF proteins has in certain cases a non-trivial influence on the distributions of both the TFs and the proteins produced from the regulated gene. In particular, the output level may fall below the threshold for protein activity due to the enhanced fluctuations in the amount of proteins synthesized.

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