DNA looping and bistability of the lac genetic switch
1/10/2014 Tyler M Earnest, Elijah Roberts, Michael Assaf, Karin Dahmen and Zaida Luthey-Schulten
We develop a model of the lac genetic switch that describes the switching and coexistence of phenotypes as a function of extracellular lactose concentration. We present a first stochastic treatment of a gene–mRNA–protein model of the lac operon in E. coli interacting with extracellular inducer that includes transitions to looped DNA states. This highly interdisciplinary project, involving 2 post-docs and one graduate student, uses tools from physics and new mathematical tools to explain statistical aspects of stochastic gene expression.