Relationship between promoter sequence and its strength in gene expression

Abstract

In this study, through various tests one theoretical model is presented to describe the relationship between promoter strength and its nucleotide sequence. Our analysis shows that, promoter strength is greatly influenced by nucleotide groups with three adjacent nucleotides in its sequence. Meanwhile, nucleotides in different regions of promoter sequence have different effects on promoter strength. Based on experimental data for {\it E. coli} promoters, our calculations indicate, nucleotides in -10 region, -35 region, and the discriminator region of promoter sequence are more important than those in spacing region for determining promoter strength. With model parameter values obtained by fitting to experimental data, four promoter libraries are theoretically built for the corresponding experimental environments under which data for promoter strength in gene expression has been measured previously.