Evaluation of the performance of mechanisms for noise attenuation in a single-gene expression

Experiments of synthetic gene regulatory modules and theoretical studies have clarified the stochastic nature of gene expression. The establishment of methods to control the fluctuation in gene expression is an indispensable step to the synthesis of robust and reliable genetic modules. In this study, we evaluate the performances of several major mechanisms to attenuate the fluctuation in a single-gene expression; noise attenuation through the control of the ratio of the transcription rate to the translation one, the interaction between synthesized proteins and background molecules, and an autoregulatory negative feedback. We analytically derive the dependence of the noise intensity on the parameter values related to elementary reaction processes, optimal conditions to attenuate the noise, and the limitation of the attenuation for those mechanisms. Our results can be an important basis for selecting the most efficient combination of the components in the design and synthesis of robust and reliable genetic modules. Furthermore, the knowledge on the performances that we obtain can also play a role in understanding the design principle of the intracellular gene regulatory networks. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.