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Not all quiet on the noise front

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Phenotypic diversity exists even within isogenic populations of cells. Such nongenetic individuality may have wide implications for our understanding of many biological processes. The field of study concerned with the investigation of nongenetic individuality, also known as the 'biology of noise', is ripe with exciting scientific opportunities and challenges.

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Figure 1: Biochemical noise percolates to cellular phenotypes through complex networks, generating nongenetic individuality.
Figure 2: Different steps in gene expression modulate protein variability.
Figure 3: Nongenetic individuality can have important consequences for cell-cell communication and cellular fates in multicellular structures.

Marina Corral

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Steward-Ornstein for his comments on this commentary. This work was supported by the University of California, San Francisco Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research and by a US National Institutes of Health grant (GM086379) to H.E.-S.

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Author notes

  1. Emma McCullagh, Justin Farlow, Christopher Fuller, Juliet Girard, Joanna Lipinski-Kruszka, Dan Lu, Thomas Noriega, Geoffrey Rollins, Russell Spitzer and Michael Todhunter: These authors contributed equally to this work and are listed in alphabetical order.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Emma McCullagh, Justin Farlow, Juliet Girard, Thomas Noriega and Michael Todhunter are in the TETRAD Graduate Program, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA.,

    Emma McCullagh, Justin Farlow, Juliet Girard, Thomas Noriega & Michael Todhunter

  2. Christopher Fuller, Joanna Lipinski-Kruszka, Dan Lu, Geoffrey Rollins and Russell Spitzer are in the Integrative Program in Quantitative Biology, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA.,

    Christopher Fuller, Joanna Lipinski-Kruszka, Dan Lu, Geoffrey Rollins & Russell Spitzer

  3. Hana El-Samad is in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA.,

    Hana El-Samad

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  1. Emma McCullagh
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Correspondence to Hana El-Samad.

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McCullagh, E., Farlow, J., Fuller, C. et al. Not all quiet on the noise front. Nat Chem Biol 5, 699–704 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.222

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