Minimal model of transcriptional elongation processes with pauses

Jingkui Wang, Benjamin Pfeuty, Quentin Thommen, M. Carmen Romano Blasco, Marc Lefranc

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Fundamental biological processes such as transcription and translation, where a genetic sequence is sequentially read by a macromolecule, have been well described by a classical model of nonequilibrium statistical physics, the totally asymmetric exclusion principle (TASEP). This model describes particles hopping between sites of a one-dimensional lattice, with the particle current determining the transcription or translation rate. An open problem is how to analyze a TASEP where particles can pause randomly, as has been observed during transcription. In this work, we report that surprisingly, a simple mean-field model predicts well the particle current for all values of the average pause duration, using a simple description of blocking behind paused particles.
Original languageEnglish
Article number050701
Pages (from-to)1-4
Number of pages4
JournalPhysical Review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear and Soft Matter Physics
Volume90
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11 Nov 2014

Bibliographical note

M.C.R. is funded by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences
Research Council (BB/F00513/X1) and SULSA, and
acknowledges a Visiting Professorship at Universite Lille 1 ´
in June 2012. This work has been partially supported by
Ministry of Higher Education and Research, Nord-Pas de
Calais Regional Council and European Regional Development
Fund (ERDF) through the Contrat de Projets Etat-R ´ egion ´
(CPER) 2007–2013, as well as by the Agence Nationale de
la Recherche through the LABEX CEMPI project (ANR-11-
LABX-0007).

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