W25: Quantitative Microbiology

Physics 176/276 

Instructor: Prof. Terry Hwa; Urey 7222
e-mail: 
grader: Shiqi Liu
Time Tu/Th 2:00 – 3:20 pm 
(one make-up lecture the week of Jan 27)
Location Urey Hall
Office Hour: after class or by appointment.
Course URL: this page (https://matisse.ucsd.edu/courses/w25-quant-microb/)
Grade 4 problem sets (to be posted below);
a possible final project
Prerequisite: math through ordinary differential equation; undergrad thermodynamics & statistical mechanics; intro to molecular biology; or consent of instructor.

Course description

Reference Books

Course outline

  • Intro: central dogma, gene regulatory network, and bacterial physiology
  • Protein-DNA interactions: equilibrium, kinetic, cooperatively
  • Gene regulation: cooperativity and combinatorial regulation
  • stochastic gene expression; genetic circuits with feedback
  • Bacterial growth physiology: growth laws, growth and size control
  • Bacterial metabolism: catabolite repression, diauxic shift, metabolic overflow
  • Bacterial motility and chemotaxis

Course activity (tentative):

  Date Topics assignment
L1 Tu, Jan 7 Intro to quantitative biology;
review of molecular microbiology [note] ref: Monod, 1949 
 
L2 Th, Jan 9 Protein-DNA interaction I:  
thermodynamics & specificity [note]
refs: Berg & von Hippel, 1986; 1987; 1988; Fields et al, 1997; Gerland et al, 2002;
HW1 on L1-L3
due Tu Jan 28
L3 Tu, Jan 14 Protein-DNA interaction II:
kinetic accessibility [note];
intro to bacterial transcription [note]
refs: Berg, Winter, von Hippel, 1981;
Winter, Berg, von Hippel, 1981
 
L4 Th, Jan 16 Transcriptional regulation I:
simple models of activation & repression [note] [Bintu et al, 2005a][Bintu et al, 2005b]
 
  Tu, Jan 21 no class  
  Th, Jan 23 no class  
L5 Tu, Jan 28 Transcriptional regulation II:  
Cooperative control [note]
 
L6 Th, Jan 30 Transcriptional regulation III: 
Combinatorial control (theory)
[note] [Buchler et al, 2003]
HW2 on L4-L7
due Th Feb 13
L7 Fri, Jan 31
(4-520 pm)
Transcriptional regulation IV
Combinatorial control (expt)
[note] [Kuhlman et al, 2007]
 
L8 Tu, Feb 4 post-transcriptional control I: transcription termination, anti-termination, and translational mechanisms [note] [Dai et al, 2016] HW1 soln
L9 Fri, Feb 7
(4-520 pm)
post-transcriptional control II: gene-silencing by small RNA; proteolysis [note] [recording] [Levine et al, 2007] [Buchler et al, 2005]  
L10 Tu, Feb 11 Genetic circuits I: -ve & +ve feedback; switches and oscillators [note] [Gao et al, 2022]  
L11 Th, Feb 13 Genetic circuits II: stochastic gene expression [note] [recording]
HW3 on L8-L12
due Th Feb 27
L12 Tu, Feb 18 Genetic circuits III: metabolic control & feedback [note][recording] HW2 soln
L13 Th, Feb 20 Bacterial growth physiology [note] [recording]  
L14 Tu, Feb 25 Quantitative Central Dogma [note] [recording] [Balakrishnan et al, 2022]  
L15 Th, Feb 27 Global proteome allocation [note] [recording] [Scott et al, 2010] HW4 on L13-18 due Th March 13
L16 Tu, Mar 4 Growth control by ppGpp [note]
[recording] [Wu et al, 2022]
 
L17 Th, Mar 6 Catabolite repression and proteome allocation [note] [You et al, 2013]  
L18 Tu, Mar 11 diauxic growth and metabolic overflow [note] [recording] [Basan et al, 2015]  
L19 Th, Mar 13 gene expression and growth kinetics
[note] [recording] [Erickson et al, 2017]