Stochastic Demand Theory of Gene Regulation

Gene regulation is the mechanism by which cells regulate which genes are expressed under specific internal and extracellular environmental conditions. This thesis aims to look at different modes of gene regulation, specifically the "use-it-or-lose-it" principle and the "wear and tear" principle, to determine which is preferred based on population size and timescales of environmental variation. While previous research has used asymptotic approximations to create deterministic models, our model introduces stochasticity and simulates gene mutations happening according to a continuous-time Markov process in order to explore selection between modes of gene regulation.