Figure 5From: Robustness of transcriptional regulatory program influences gene expression variabilityA model for robust and fragile transcriptional regulatory programs. Pol II density over the ORF indicates expression level. In the robust transcriptional regulatory program, cooperative TFs work together in an activity-redundant fashion under normal growth condition (the left top panel). Accordingly, the expression level of the robust gene is not affected by stress-related TF binding or TF perturbation (knockout, sequence divergence, activity changes) (the right top two panels). While in the fragile transcriptional regulatory program, cooperative TFs work in an activity-independent fashion under normal growth condition (the left bottom panel). This leads to the expression level of the fragile gene sensitive to stress-related TF binding and TF perturbation (the right bottom two panels).Back to article page