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Recent experiments show that transcription factors (TFs) indeed use the facilitated diffusion mechanism to locate their target sequences on DNA in living bacteria cells: TFs alternate between sliding motion along DNA and relocation events…
Transcription Factors (TFs) are proteins that regulate gene expression. The regulation mechanism is via the binding of a TF to a specific part of the gene associated with it, the TF's target. The target of a specific TF corresponds to a…
Surviving in a diverse environment requires corresponding organism responses. At the cellular level, such adjustment relies on the transcription factors (TFs) which must rapidly find their target sequences amidst a vast amount of…
In living cells, proteins combine 3D bulk diffusion and 1D sliding along the DNA to reach a target faster. This process is known as facilitated diffusion, and we investigate its dynamics in the physiologically relevant case of confined DNA.…
Transcription factor (TF) molecules translocate by facilitated diffusion (a combination of 3D diffusion around and 1D random walk on the DNA). Despite the attention this mechanism received in the last 40 years, only a few studies…
Cellular responses often require the fast activation or repression of specific genes, which depends on Transcription Factors (TFs) that have to quickly find the promoters of these genes within a large genome. Transcription Factors (TFs)…
To ensure fast gene activation, Transcription Factors (TF) use a mechanism known as facilitated diffusion to find their DNA promoter site. Here we analyze such a process where a TF alternates between 3D and 1D diffusion. In the latter (TF…
The diffusive arrival of transcription factors at the promoter sites on the DNA sets a lower bound on how accurately a cell can regulate its protein levels. Using results from the literature on diffusion-influenced reactions, we derive an…
We propose a dynamical model for non-specific DNA-protein interaction, which is based on the 'bead-spring' model previously developed by other groups, and investigate its properties using Brownian Dynamics simulations. We show that the…
It has long been asserted that proteins like transcription factors may locate their target in DNA sequences at rates that surpass by several orders of magnitude the three-dimensional diffusion limit thank to facilitated diffusion, that is…
We construct a theoretical model for the dynamics of a microscale colloidal particle, modeled as an interval, moving horizontally on a DNA-coated surface, modelled as a line coated with springs that can stick to the interval. Averaging over…
The model of facilitated diffusion describes how DNA-binding proteins, such as transcription factors (TFs), find their chromosomal targets by combining 3D diffusion through the cytoplasm and 1D sliding along nonspecific DNA sequences. The…
The precision of biochemical signaling is limited by randomness in the diffusive arrival of molecules at their targets. For proteins binding to the specific sites on the DNA and regulating transcription, the ability of the proteins to…
We develop revised theoretical ideas on the mechanism by which the transcription factor proteins locate their specific binding sites on DNA faster than the three-dimensional (3D) diffusion controlled rate limit. We demonstrate that the…
Transcription factors are able to associate to their binding sites on DNA faster than the physical limit posed by diffusion. Such high association rates can be achieved by alternating between three-dimensional diffusion and one-dimensional…
Site-specific transcription factors (TFs) bind to their target sites on the DNA, where they regulate the rate at which genes are transcribed. Bacterial TFs undergo facilitated diffusion (a combination of 3D diffusion around and 1D random…
We introduce a probabilistic model for protein sliding motion along DNA during the search of a target sequence. The model accounts for possible effects due to sequence-dependent interaction between the nonspecific DNA and the protein. As an…
Understanding how transcription factors (TFs) regulate mammalian gene expression in space and time is a central topic in biology. To activate a gene, a TF has first to diffuse in the available space of the nucleus until it reaches a target…
Strong experimental and theoretical evidence shows that transcription factors and other specific DNA-binding proteins find their sites using a two-mode search: alternating between 3D diffusion through the cell and 1D sliding along the DNA.…
Co-localization of networks of genes in the nucleus is thought to play an important role in determining gene expression patterns. Based upon experimental data, we built a dynamical model to test whether pure diffusion could account for the…