Resource Sharing

My first first-author paper, Resource Sharing Controls Gene Expression Bursting, has been published [PDF]! 

Genes express proteins in bursts of activity with periods of no activity between bursts. Burst dynamics are characterized by a burst size (duration of a burst) and burst frequency (number of bursts per time). During a burst the gene draws on a limited pool of reusable resource. Little is known about the relationship between burst dynamics and resource sharing. Here we made cell-sized reaction chambers (both PDMS plastic and POPC lipid vesicles) and observed bursting dynamics as the size of the resource pools was varied. When the size of the resource pool was increased, the number of protein made increased. This increase in protein was achieved by increasing the burst size not burst frequency. This may be due to the fact that the 100 different molecules needed to make protein became localized. Localized components suggest large transcriptional burst sizes are correlated with large translational burst sizes. This correlation is confirmed with in vivo E.coli data. Our results demonstrate the link between bursting dynamics and resource sharing.

Caveney, Patrick M., S. Elizabeth Norred, Charles W. Chin, Jonathan B. Boreyko, Brandon S. Razooky, Scott T. Retterer, C. Patrick Collier, and Michael L. Simpson. "Resource Sharing Controls Gene Expression Bursting." ACS Synthetic Biology (2016).