A stochastic model of gene switches

Abstract

We present a stochastic model of genetic regulation where the expression of genes are controlled by protein levels. In particular, we examine a genetic toggle switch with two competing proteins where one protein switches off the other gene. We model this switching behaviour in the framework of the Stochastic Master Equation (SME), which is a continuous time variant of a Markov model used in chemical systems. Thus far, the SME is mainly solved by stochastic simulation due to the perceived high computational demands. We explore approximation techniques which allow the numerical solution of the SME to be tractable.