Slow relaxation during and after perturbation of bistable kinetics of gene expression

After a short perturbation of a bistable genetic network, it returns to its initial steady state or transits to another steady state. The time scale characterizing such transient regimes can be appreciably longer compared to those of the degradation of the perturbed mRNAs and proteins. The author shows in detail the specifics of this slowdown of the transient kinetics using mean-field kinetic equations and Monte Carlo simulations. Attention is focused on nanocarrier-mediated delivery and release of short non-coding RNA (e.g., miRNA or siRNA) into cells with subsequent suppression of the populations of the targeted mRNA and corresponding protein.