Decoupling between activation time and steady-state level in input-output responses

Many biological processes, like gene regulation or cell signalling, rely on molecules (inputs) that bind to targets leading to downstream responses. In the gene regulation field, recent data have shown that higher transcription factor (TF) concentrations may increase transcription levels of a gene without affecting the gene activation time. We call this behaviour output decoupling. Motivated by these observations, here we investigate mechanisms for output decoupling in Markov process models where a readout molecule is produced downstream of ligand binding. Our focus is on identifying regimes where the steady-state level of the readout changes with input concentration, while the activation time, quantified by mean first-passage times, remains unaffected. Through a combination of analytical and numerical investigations, we find two mechanisms through which output decoupling can arise: i) rate scale separation, where the system is comprised of slow and fast transitions that are differentially regulated by the input; and ii) incoherent regulation, where the input acts on two transitions with opposing effects on readout production, when all transition rates are similar. Such incoherent regulation has emerged as a plausible regulatory mode of TFs, and we suggest decoupling as a new characteristic feature of this regulatory mode. More broadly, our findings offer a mechanistic and conceptual framework for reasoning about output decoupling in input-output systems.