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Gene regulation

Expression feels two pulses

Nature volume 527, pages 46–47 (2015)Cite this article

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Single-cell analyses reveal that combinatorial changes in the intracellular locations of transcription factors can tune the expression of the factors' target genes in response to environmental stimuli. See Article p.54

Most transcription factors exert their action continuously, but some act in pulses by moving rapidly in and out of the nucleus. Transmitting cellular signalling-pathway information in pulses or oscillations has several advantages over continuous signalling. For example, information can be encoded in the frequency or amplitude of pulsing, boosting the amount of information transmitted. Investigating this phenomenon has proved difficult, however, because the behaviour of pulsatile transcription factors varies greatly from cell to cell1. In this issue, Lin et al.2 (page 54) overcome this hurdle and demonstrate that combinations of transcription-factor pulses that change in response to environmental stimuli can regulate gene expression.

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Figure 1: Interpreting transcription-factor pulses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Antoine Baudrimont and Attila Becskei are in the Biozentrum, University of Basel, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland.,

    Antoine Baudrimont & Attila Becskei

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  1. Antoine Baudrimont
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  2. Attila Becskei
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Correspondence to Attila Becskei.

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Baudrimont, A., Becskei, A. Expression feels two pulses. Nature 527, 46–47 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature15634

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