Mean stochastic cellular lifetime of an mRNA molecule

Value 1.5 min
Organism Bacteria Escherichia coli
Reference Yu J, Xiao J, Ren X, Lao K, Xie XS. Probing gene expression in live cells, one protein molecule at a time. Science. 2006 Mar 17 311(5767):1600-3. p.1601 right column bottom paragraphPubMed ID16543458
Comments "[Researchers] show the histogram of the number of protein molecules (n) produced per mRNA molecule (Fig. 4B). The distribution fits well with a single exponential decay, which is termed the geometric distribution for integer n. This distribution arises from the stochastic cellular lifetime of an mRNA molecule with mean tmRNA=1.5 min (fig. S4) due to degradation of mRNA by ribonuclease (RNase) E, which competes with ribosomes for mRNA binding (33)."
Entered by Uri M
ID 109042