Contribution of nucleocytoplasmic transport to N/C ratio fluctuations

Determine whether nucleocytoplasmic transport of proteins through nuclear pore complexes contributes significantly to temporal fluctuations in the nuclear-to-cell ratio and, if so, characterize its impact relative to fluctuations arising from stochastic gene expression alone.

Background

The simplified model focuses on translation-only kinetics and omits explicit nucleocytoplasmic transport, yet prior work indicates transport is important for setting the mean N/C ratio. The authors note extensive deterministic and stochastic studies of transport but emphasize that its role in fluctuations remains unresolved.

Clarifying the contribution of transport dynamics to N/C ratio variability would help reconcile large-number predictions of negligible fluctuations with experimentally observed time-varying N/C ratios.