Abstract
Stochastic `noise' arises from random thermal fluctuations in the
concentration of protein, RNA, or other molecules within the cell and is
an unavoidable aspect of life at the single-cell level. Evidence is
accumulating that this biochemical noise crucially influences cellular
auto-regulatory circuits and can `flip' genetic switches to drive
probabilistic fate decisions in bacteria, viruses, cancer, and stem
cells. Here, we review how stochastic gene expression in key
auto-regulatory proteins can control fate determination between latency
and productive replication in both phage-lambda and HIV-1. We highlight
important new studies that synthetically manipulate auto-regulatory
circuitry and noise, to bias HIV-1's ability to enter proviral latency.
We argue that an appreciation of noise in gene expression may shed light
on the mystery of animal virus latency and that strategies to manipulate
noise may have impact on anti-viral therapeutics.
