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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 30, 2025

Overexpressing and Purifying a Toxic Nuclease from Escherichia coli

Overexpressing and Purifying a Toxic Nuclease from Escherichia coli

Published on: August 29, 2025

Gene expression noise in a complex artificial toxin expression system.

Alexandra Goetz¹, Andreas Mader¹, Benedikt von Bronk¹

¹Faculty of Physics and Center for NanoScience, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, Munich, Germany.

|January 22, 2020

Summary

Gene expression noise in bacteria is reduced by post-transcriptional regulation. This study shows that controlling gene expression noise is crucial for cellular function and fate.

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Last Updated: Dec 30, 2025

Overexpressing and Purifying a Toxic Nuclease from Escherichia coli

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Continuous Measurement of Biological Noise in Escherichia Coli Using Time-lapse Microscopy

Continuous Measurement of Biological Noise in Escherichia Coli Using Time-lapse Microscopy

Published on: April 27, 2021

Area of Science:

Microbiology
Molecular Biology
Systems Biology

Background:

Gene expression is inherently stochastic, leading to cell variability.
Variations in mRNA and protein levels impact cellular function and fate.
Understanding gene expression noise is key to controlling cellular processes.

Purpose of the Study:

To quantify noise dynamics in an artificial operon in Escherichia coli.
To investigate the role of transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation in controlling gene expression noise.
To explore the impact of global factors on operon noise.

Main Methods:

Utilized fluorescence time-lapse microscopy to monitor gene expression.
Constructed an artificial operon based on the native ColicinE2 operon in E. coli.
Introduced mutations affecting transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation.

Main Results:

Post-transcriptionally regulated gene 'cel' exhibited higher noise than transcriptionally regulated gene 'cea'.
Mutations in transcriptional regulation (LexA repressor) had minimal impact on population noise.
Mutations in post-transcriptional units significantly altered noise levels for both genes.
Plasmid copy number influenced the overall gene expression noise of the operon.

Conclusions:

Post-transcriptional regulation plays a critical role in controlling gene expression noise.
Global factors like plasmid copy number can affect operon-wide gene expression noise.
Insights into noise control mechanisms in native toxin-producing operons were provided.