Reconciling Kinetic and Equilibrium Models of Bacterial
Tr a n s c r i p t i o n
Muir Morrison
1
,ManuelRazo-Mejia
2
,andRobPhillips
1, 2, *
1
Department of Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
2
Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
CA 91125, USA
*
Correspondence: phillips@pboc.caltech.edu
Abstract
The study of transcription remains one of the centerpieces of modern biology with
implications in settings from development to metabolism to evolution to disease. Pre-
cision measurements using a host of di
↵
erent techniques including fluorescence and
sequencing readouts have raised the bar for what it means to quantitatively under-
stand transcriptional regulation. In particular our understanding of the simplest ge-
netic circuit is su