Regensburg 2007 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 16: Poster Session I

BP 16.45: Poster

Tuesday, March 27, 2007, 17:00–19:30, Poster D

Stochastic description of time delayed feedback oscillators — •Luis G. Morelli and Frank Jülicher — Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems

Many cellular processes are regulated or driven by genetic oscillators, as in circadian clocks, the cell cycle, and patterning developing embryos. Due to the stochastic nature of gene expression, the period of such oscillations is subject to fluctuations. The precision of the oscillator can be characterized by the quality factor. We study the precision of genetic oscillators in a generic stochastic feedback system. We include the effects of amplification noise, arising for example from bursts of transcription and translation. We show that high quality is possible for certain parameter ranges even when the number of molecules is low and amplitude fluctuations are large.