Transient Memory in Gene Regulation

The expression of a gene is characterised by its transcription factorsand the function processing them. If the transcription factorsare not affected by gene products, the regulating functionis often represented as a combinational logiccircuit, where the outputs (product) are determined by current input values ( transcription factors) only, and are hence independent on their relative arrival times. However, the simultaneous arrival of transcription factors(TFs) in genetic circuits is a strong assumption, given that the processes of transcription and translation of a gene into a protein introduce intrinsic time delays and that there is no global synchronisation among the arrival times of different molecular species at molecular targets.