Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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AGjDPG: Arbeitsgruppe junge DPG

AGjDPG 4: Systems Biology of Bacteria

AGjDPG 4.1: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 09:30–10:00, E 020

Stochastic gene regulation strategies in bacteria — •Ulrich Gerland — LMU, Munich, Germany

The regulatory circuits that control the processing of signals and the transcription of genes in bacterial cells are fascinating nonlinear stochastic systems. They often appear to be optimized by evolution, but they are only beginning to be explored on a quantitative level. I will briefly review some of the developments in this field, and then focus on a small regulatory circuit that controls the production of the machinery required to import and digest a specific sugar in E. coli bacteria. In a population of cells, this remarkably simple circuit leads to heterogeneous dynamic behavior that appears to implement an optimal strategy to deal with unpredictable environments.