ArticleNature communications2025
Anti-correlation of LacI association and dissociation rates observed in living cells.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Distinct transcription factor network dynamics underlie early and long-term adaptation to rifampicin inmSystems · 2026Article
- A control theoretical approach to gene regulation reveals quantitative constraints for dynamic homeostasis in stochastic gene expression.Biochimica et biophysica acta. Molecular basis of disease · 2026Article
- Optimization of the genetic code expansion technology for intracellular labelling and single-molecule tracking of proteins in genomically re-codedRSC chemical biology · 2026Article
- Pooled optical screening in bacteria using chromosomally expressed barcodes.Communications biology · 2025Article
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4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The rate at which transcription factors (TFs) bind their cognate sites has long been assumed to be limited by diffusion, and thus independent of binding site sequence. Here, we systematically test this assumption using cell-to-cell variability in gene expression as a window into the in vivo association and dissociation kinetics of the model transcription factor LacI. Using a stochastic model of the relationship between gene expression variability and binding kinetics, we performed single-cell gene expression measurements to infer association and dissociation rates for a set of 35 different LacI binding sites. We found that both association and dissociation rates differed significantly between binding sites, and moreover observed a clear anticorrelation between these rates across varying binding site strengths. These results contradict the long-standing hypothesis that TF binding site strength is primarily dictated by the dissociation rate, but may confer the evolutionary advantage that TFs do not get stuck in near-operator sequences while searching.
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