Shaping protein distributions in stochastic self-regulated gene expression networks

In this work, we study connections between dynamic behavior and network parameters, for self-regulatory networks. To that aim, a method to compute the regions in the space of parameters that sustain bimodal or binary protein distributions has been developed. Such regions are indicative of stochastic dynamics manifested either as transitions between absence and presence of protein or between two positive protein levels. The method is based on the continuous approximation of the chemical master equation, unlike other approaches that make use of a deterministic description, which as will be shown can be misleading. We find that bimodal behavior is a ubiquitous phenomenon in cooperative gene expression networks under positive feedback. It appears for any range of transcription and translation rate constants whenever leakage remains below a critical threshold. Above such a threshold, the region in the parameters space which sustains bimodality persists, although restricted to low transcription and high translation rate constants. Remarkably, such a threshold is independent of the transcription or translation rates or the proportion of an active or inactive promoter and depends only on the level of cooperativity. The proposed method can be employed to identify bimodal or binary distributions leading to stochastic dynamics with specific switching properties, by searching inside the parameter regions that sustain such behavior.