• Open Access

Role of Spatial Averaging in the Precision of Gene Expression Patterns

Thorsten Erdmann, Martin Howard, and Pieter Rein ten Wolde
Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 258101 – Published 17 December 2009

Abstract

During embryonic development, differentiating cells respond via gene expression to positional cues from morphogen gradients. While gene expression is often highly erratic, embryonic development is precise. We show by theory and simulations that diffusion of the expressed protein can enhance the precision of its expression domain. While diffusion lessens the sharpness of the expression boundary, it also reduces super-Poissonian noise by washing out bursts of gene expression. Balancing these effects yields an optimal diffusion constant maximizing the precision of the expression domain.

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  • Received 22 July 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.258101

This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Authors & Affiliations

Thorsten Erdmann1, Martin Howard2, and Pieter Rein ten Wolde1

  • 1FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics, Science Park 104, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 2Department of Computational and Systems Biology, John Innes Centre, Norwich NR4 7UH, United Kingdom

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Issue

Vol. 103, Iss. 25 — 18 December 2009

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