Promoter activity

Promoter activity of the P-RM and P-R promoters vs RNA polymerase concentration in the enterobacteriophage lambda[1]

Promoter activity is a term that encompasses several meanings around the process of gene expression from regulatory sequences —promoters[2] and enhancers.[3] Gene expression has been commonly characterized as a measure of how much, how fast, when and where this process happens.[4] Promoters and enhancers are required for controlling where and when a specific gene is transcribed.[3]

Traditionally the measure of gene products (i.e. mRNA, proteins, etc.) has been the major approach of measure promoter activity. However, this method confront with two issues: the stochastic nature of the gene expression[5] and the lack of mechanistic interpretation of the thermodynamical process involved in the promoter activation.[4]

The actual developments in metabolomics product of developments of next-generation sequencing technologies and molecular structural analysis have enabled the development of more accurate models of the process of promoter activation (e.g. the sigma structure of the polymerase holoenzyme domains[6]) and a better understanding of the complexities of the regulatory factors involved.

  1. ^ Shea, M.; Akers, G. (1985). "The 0R Control System of Bacteriophage Lambda A Physical-Chemical Model for Gene Regulation". Journal of Molecular Biology. 181 (2): 211–230. doi:10.1016/0022-2836(85)90086-5. PMID 3157005.
  2. ^ LaFleur, Travis L.; Hossain, Ayaan; Salis, Howard M. (2022-09-02). "Automated model-predictive design of synthetic promoters to control transcriptional profiles in bacteria". Nature Communications. 13 (1): 5159. doi:10.1038/s41467-022-32829-5. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 9440211. PMID 36056029.
  3. ^ a b Gilbert, S.F. (2000). Developmental Biology. Sinauer Associates.
  4. ^ a b Bintu, L.; Buchler, N; Garcia, H; Gerland, U; Hwa, T; Kondev, J; Phillips, R (2005). "Transcriptional regulation by the numbers: models". Current Opinion in Genetics & Development. 15 (2): 116–124. arXiv:q-bio/0412010. doi:10.1016/j.gde.2005.02.007. PMC 3482385. PMID 15797194. S2CID 6013797.
  5. ^ Elowitz, M; Levine, A.J.; Siggia, E.; Swain, P. (2002). "Stochastic Gene Expression in a Single Cell" (PDF). Science. 297 (5584): 1183–1186. Bibcode:2002Sci...297.1183E. doi:10.1126/science.1070919. PMID 12183631. S2CID 10845628.
  6. ^ Borukhov, S.; Nudlery, E (2003). "RNA polymerase holoenzyme: structure, function and biological implications". Current Opinion in Microbiology. 6 (2): 93–100. doi:10.1016/s1369-5274(03)00036-5. PMID 12732296.