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Scientific article
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English

Stochastic Gene Expression in Switching Environments

Published inJournal of mathematical biology, vol. 55, no. 2, p. 249-269
Publication date2007
Abstract

Organisms are known to adapt to regularly varying environments. However, in most cases, the fluctuations of the environment are irregular and stochastic, alternating between favorable and unfavorable regimes, so that cells must cope with an uncertain future. A possible response is population diversification. We assume here that the cell population is divided into two groups, corresponding to two phenotypes, having distinct growth rates, and that cells can switch randomly their phenotypes. In static environments, the net growth rate is maximized when the population is homogeneously composed of cells having the largest growth rate. In random environments, growth rates fluctuate and observations reveal that sometimes heterogeneous populations have a larger net growth rate than homogeneous ones, a fact illustrated recently through Monte-Carlo simulations based on a birth and migration process in a random environment. We study this process mathematically by focusing on the proportion

Keywords
  • Gene expression
  • Fluctuating environment
  • Steady state
Citation (ISO format)
GANDER, Martin Jakob, MAZZA, Christian, RUMMLER, Hansklaus. Stochastic Gene Expression in Switching Environments. In: Journal of mathematical biology, 2007, vol. 55, n° 2, p. 249–269.
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Article (Accepted version)
accessLevelPublic
Identifiers
  • PID : unige:6274
ISSN of the journal0303-6812
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