Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

Synthetic biology

Building up a picture of gene regulation

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 7, pages 242–243 (2006)Cite this article

The authors engineered the OROlac promoter in Escherichia coli in a way that allowed them to study, in a controlled way, the effects of repression and/or activation on reporter gene expression. Four modules were constructed — unregulated, repressor-only, activator-only, and repressor and activator — in which the promoter was cloned upstream of a GFP ORF, and in which the activator and/or repressor were either present or absent.

A stochastic mathematical model that the authors developed correctly predicted the behaviour of the engineered modules, taking into account factors such as changes in the concentration of transcription factors and cell volume. Moreover, the model was able to make further predictions, for example, that a substantial amount of variability in gene expression in this system was due to fluctuations in the copy number of the plasmid — an expectation that the authors confirmed experimentally by re-cloning their engineered promoters into different plasmids. Strikingly, the model was also able to correctly predict the in vivo behaviour of a more complex system, in which a positive-feedback loop was added to the repressor–activator module.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Guido, N. J. & Wang, X. et al. A bottom-up approach to gene regulation. Nature 439, 856–860 (2006)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

FURTHER READING

  1. Kærns, M. et al. Stochasticity in gene expression: from theories to phenotypes. Nature Rev. Genet. 5, 451–464 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Wall, M. E. et al. Design of gene circuits: lessons from bacteria. Nature Rev. Genet. 6, 34–42 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Magdalena Skipper
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Skipper, M. Building up a picture of gene regulation. Nat Rev Genet 7, 242–243 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1844

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1844

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing