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Main Authors: Lu, Yuntao, Zhang, Yunxin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.08028
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author Lu, Yuntao
Zhang, Yunxin
author_facet Lu, Yuntao
Zhang, Yunxin
contents Stochastic modeling of transcription is a classic yet long-standing problem in theoretical biophysics. The lack of unified results and a computationally efficient approach for a general, fine-grained transcription model has confined relevant research to some over-simplified special cases like the Telegraph model. This article establishes a general, unified and computationally efficient framework for studying stochastic transcription kinetics. We consider a chemical reaction model of transcription and construct the time-dependent solution to the corresponding chemical master equation. A well-known matrix-form expression for steady-state binomial moments is recovered by calculating the temporal limit of the time-dependent dynamics. Two novel inequalities for binomial moments and the probability mass function are derived using techniques from functional analysis. It follows that the distribution of mRNA counts is upper-bounded by a constant multiple of Poisson distribution, thus mathematically proving the main statement of the Heavy-Tailed Law. Additionally, the standard binomial moment method is analyzed from a numerical perspective, where truncation error is estimated using our inequalities. Compared with some widely-used numerical methods, a key advantage of this result is the significantly lower computational complexity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_08028
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Stochastic Kinetics of mRNA Molecules in a General Transcription Model
Lu, Yuntao
Zhang, Yunxin
Biological Physics
60J28
Stochastic modeling of transcription is a classic yet long-standing problem in theoretical biophysics. The lack of unified results and a computationally efficient approach for a general, fine-grained transcription model has confined relevant research to some over-simplified special cases like the Telegraph model. This article establishes a general, unified and computationally efficient framework for studying stochastic transcription kinetics. We consider a chemical reaction model of transcription and construct the time-dependent solution to the corresponding chemical master equation. A well-known matrix-form expression for steady-state binomial moments is recovered by calculating the temporal limit of the time-dependent dynamics. Two novel inequalities for binomial moments and the probability mass function are derived using techniques from functional analysis. It follows that the distribution of mRNA counts is upper-bounded by a constant multiple of Poisson distribution, thus mathematically proving the main statement of the Heavy-Tailed Law. Additionally, the standard binomial moment method is analyzed from a numerical perspective, where truncation error is estimated using our inequalities. Compared with some widely-used numerical methods, a key advantage of this result is the significantly lower computational complexity.
title Stochastic Kinetics of mRNA Molecules in a General Transcription Model
topic Biological Physics
60J28
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.08028