Universal protein distributions in a model of cell growth and division

• Published in: Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics Vol. 92; no. 4; p. 042713
• Main Authors: Brenner, Naama, Newman, C M, Osmanović, Dino, Rabin, Yitzhak, Salman, Hanna, Stein, D L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 23.10.2015
• Subjects: Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; Cell Division - physiology; Cell Enlargement; Computer Simulation; Feedback, Physiological - physiology; Models, Biological; Stochastic Processes
• ISSN: 1550-2376
• DOI: 10.1103/physreve.92.042713

Protein distributions measured under a broad set of conditions in bacteria and yeast were shown to exhibit a common skewed shape, with variances depending quadratically on means. For bacteria these properties were reproduced by temporal measurements of protein content, showing accumulation and division across generations. Here we present a stochastic growth-and-division model with feedback which captures these observed properties. The limiting copy number distribution is calculated exactly, and a single parameter is found to determine the distribution shape and the variance-to-mean relation. Estimating this parameter from bacterial temporal data reproduces the measured distribution shape with high accuracy and leads to predictions for future experiments.