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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Oct 8.
Published in final edited form as: Curr Opin Cell Biol. 2020 Nov 24;67:147–157. doi: 10.1016/j.ceb.2020.08.001

Figure 1. Separation of timescales between transcriptional bursting and its underlying molecular processes.

Figure 1

(a,b,c) Transcriptional bursting in (a) an embryo of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, (b) the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, and (c) human cells. (d) In these and other organisms, bursting dynamics (average period of ON and OFF) span a wide range of timescales from a few minutes to tens of hours. (e) Timescales of the molecular processes behind transcription range from fast seconds-long transcription factor binding to slower histone modifications, which may unfold across multiple hours or days. A detailed summary of measurements leading to these numbers, including references, is provided in Appendix A. (a, adapted from Ref. [16]; b, adapted from Ref. [17]; c, adapted from Ref. [18]).