Joh RI, Weitz JS. To lyse or not to lyse: transient-mediated stochastic fate determination in cells infected by bacteriophages.
PLoS Comput Biol 2011;
7:e1002006. [PMID:
21423715 PMCID:
PMC3053317 DOI:
10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002006]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/03/2010] [Accepted: 12/22/2010] [Indexed: 01/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Cell fate determination is usually described as the result of the stochastic dynamics of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) reaching one of multiple steady-states each of which corresponds to a specific decision. However, the fate of a cell is determined in finite time suggesting the importance of transient dynamics in cellular decision making. Here we consider cellular decision making as resulting from first passage processes of regulatory proteins and examine the effect of transient dynamics within the initial lysis-lysogeny switch of phage λ. Importantly, the fate of an infected cell depends, in part, on the number of coinfecting phages. Using a quantitative model of the phage λ GRN, we find that changes in the likelihood of lysis and lysogeny can be driven by changes in phage co-infection number regardless of whether or not there exists steady-state bistability within the GRN. Furthermore, two GRNs which yield qualitatively distinct steady state behaviors as a function of phage infection number can show similar transient responses, sufficient for alternative cell fate determination. We compare our model results to a recent experimental study of cell fate determination in single cell assays of multiply infected bacteria. Whereas the experimental study proposed a “quasi-independent” hypothesis for cell fate determination consistent with an observed data collapse, we demonstrate that observed cell fate results are compatible with an alternative form of data collapse consistent with a partial gene dosage compensation mechanism. We show that including partial gene dosage compensation at the mRNA level in our stochastic model of fate determination leads to the same data collapse observed in the single cell study. Our findings elucidate the importance of transient gene regulatory dynamics in fate determination, and present a novel alternative hypothesis to explain single-cell level heterogeneity within the phage λ lysis-lysogeny decision switch.
Multicellular organisms, single-celled organisms, and even viruses can exhibit alternative responses to various internal and environmental conditions. At the cellular level, alternative fate determination is usually described as the result of the inherent bistability of gene regulatory networks (GRNs). However, the fate of a cell is determined in finite time suggesting the importance of transient dynamics to cellular decision making. Here, we present a quantitative gene regulatory model of how bacteriophages determine the fate of an infected bacterium. We find that increasing the number of infecting phages increases the chance of quiescent (i.e., lysogeny) vs. productive (i.e. lysis) viral growth, in agreement with prior studies. However, unlike previous theoretical studies, the bias in cell fate is a result of the transient divergence of stochastic gene expression dynamics. We compare and contrast our theoretical model with recent observations of cell fate measured at the single-cell level within multiply-infected cells. Predicted heterogeneity in cell fate is shown to agree with data when including a previously unidentified gene dosage compensation mechanism, which represents an alternative hypothesis to how multiple phages interact in influencing cell fate. Together, our results suggest the importance of quantitative details of transient gene regulation in driving stochastic fate determination.
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