Correlation Resonance Generated by Coupled Enzymatic Processing
W. H. Mather, N. A. Cookson, J. Hasty, L. S. Tsimring and R. J. Williams
ABSTRACT
A major challenge for systems biology is to deduce the molecular interactions that underlie correlations observed
between concentrations of different intracellular molecules. Although direct explanations such as coupled
transcription or direct protein-protein interactions are often considered, potential indirect sources of
coupling have received much less attention. Here we show how correlations can arise generically from a posttranslational
coupling mechanism involving the processing of multiple protein species by a common enzyme. By observing a connection
between a stochastic model and a multiclass queue, we obtain a closed form expression for the steady-state distribution
of the numbers of molecules of each protein species. Upon deriving explicit analytic expressions for moments and correlations
associated with this distribution, we discover a striking phenomenon that we call
correlation resonance: for small dilution rate, correlations peak near the balance-point where the total rate of influx of
proteins into the system is equal to the maximum processing capacity of the enzyme. Given the limited number of
many important catalytic molecules, our results may lead to new insights into the origin of correlated behavior on a global scale.
Published in Biophysical Journal, 99 (2010), 3172-3181.
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Last updated: November 17, 2010