Scientists predict activity of human genes
Thursday, December 17, 2015 - 12:17
in Biology & Nature
Genetically identical cells do not always behave the same way. According to the accepted theory, the reason are random molecular processes - known as random noise. For decades this view has been underpinned by numerous experiments and theoretical models. Now the system biologists of the University of Zurich have made a momentous discovery: The spatial separation of human cells into a nucleus and cytoplasm creates some kind of passive filter. This filter suppresses the random noise and enables human cells to precisely regulate the activity of individual genes.