Comparison and calibration of different reporters for quantitative analysis of gene expression

Absolute levels of gene expression in bacteria are observed to vary over as much as six orders of magnitude. Thermodynamic models have been proposed as a tool to describe the expression levels of a given transcriptional circuit. In this context, it is essential to understand both the limitations and linear range of the different methods for measuring gene expression and to determine to what extent measurements from different reporters can be directly compared with one aim being the stringent testing of theoretical descriptions of gene expression. In this article, we compare two protein reporters by measuring both the absolute level of expression and fold-change in expression using the fluorescent protein EYFP and the enzymatic reporter β-galactosidase. We determine their dynamic and linear range and show that they are interchangeable for measuring mean levels of expression over four orders of magnitude. By calibrating these reporters such that they can be interpreted in terms of absolute molecular counts, we establish limits for their applicability: autofluorescence on the lower end of expression for EYFP (at ∼10 molecules per cell) and interference with cellular growth on the high end for β-galactosidase (at ∼20,000 molecules per cell). These qualities make the reporters complementary and necessary when trying to experimentally verify the predictions from the theoretical models.