Journal article
A stochastic vs deterministic perspective on the timing of cellular events
L Ham, MA Coomer, K Öcal, R Grima, MPH Stumpf
Nature Communications | NATURE PORTFOLIO | Published : 2024
Abstract
Cells are the fundamental units of life, and like all life forms, they change over time. Changes in cell state are driven by molecular processes; of these many are initiated when molecule numbers reach and exceed specific thresholds, a characteristic that can be described as “digital cellular logic”. Here we show how molecular and cellular noise profoundly influence the time to cross a critical threshold—the first-passage time—and map out scenarios in which stochastic dynamics result in shorter or longer average first-passage times compared to noise-less dynamics. We illustrate the dependence of the mean first-passage time on noise for a set of exemplar models of gene expression, auto-regula..
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Awarded by University of Melbourne
Funding Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge support from the members of the Theoretical Systems Biology Group at the University of Melbourne. L.H. and M.P.H.S. are supported by the University of Melbourne DVCR fund, M.A.C. by the University of Melbourne graduate research scholarship, K.OE. by the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Science (EPSRC grant EP/L016427/1) and R.G. by the Leverhulme Trust grant (Grant No. RPG-2020-327). L.H. and M.P.H.S. acknowledge funding through an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP220101005) and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Mathematical Analysis of Cellular Systems (CE230100001); K.OE. and M.P.H.S. acknowledge funding through an Australian Laureate Fellowship (FL220100005).