David Suter

SNSF and Tenure Track Assistant Professor

Institute of Bioengineering ; Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Switzerland

Transcription at the single cell level (Monday April 27th, 10h-11h)

In both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, gene transcription is believed to occur mainly during short and intense periods referred as to transcriptional bursts, interspersed by silent periods. Since these events are not synchronized between different cells, they have to be studied at the single cell level. We take advantage of the exquisite sensitivity of luminescence microscopy to monitor the expression of a short-lived luciferase that closely follows individual transcription events. Furthermore, we correlate photon emission to absolute protein and mRNA numbers, allowing us to quantitatively describe gene expression in individual cells over time. The combination of experimentally determined rates with probabilistic inference allows us to fully specify a minimal biophysical model of gene expression that informs about transcription bursts sizes, transcriptional and gene activity switching rates. I will describe how we used this method to characterize steady state transcriptional bursting kinetics of mammalian genes and their response to induction by physiological stimuli.