Data from: NF-κB oscillations translate into functionally related patterns of gene expression

Several transcription factors (TFs) oscillate, periodically relocating
between the cytoplasm and the nucleus. NF-κB, which plays key roles in
inflammation and cancer, displays oscillations whose biological advantage
remains unclear. Recent work indicated that NF-κB displays sustained
oscillations that can be entrained, that is, reach a persistent
synchronized state through small periodic perturbations. We show here that
for our GFP-p65 knock-in cells NF-κB behaves as a damped oscillator able
to synchronize to a variety of periodic external perturbations with no
memory. We imposed synchronous dynamics to prove that transcription of
NF-κB-controlled genes also oscillates, but mature transcript levels
follow three distinct patterns. Two sets of transcripts accumulate fast or
slowly, respectively. Another set, comprising chemokine and chemokine
receptor mRNAs, oscillates and resets at each new stimulus, with no memory
of the past. We propose that TF oscillatory dynamics is a means of
segmenting time to provide renewing opportunity windows for decision.