The idea that gene activity can be discontinuous will not surprise many biologists - many genes are restricted in when and where they can be expressed. Yet during the past 15 years, a collection of observations compiled under the umbrella term 'transcriptional bursting' has received considerable interest. Direct visualization of the dynamics of discontinuous transcription has expanded our understanding of basic transcriptional mechanisms and their regulation and provides a real-time readout of gene activity during the life of a cell. In this review, we try to reconcile the different views of the transcriptional process emerging from studies of bursting, and how this work contextualizes the relative importance of different regulatory inputs to normal dynamic ranges of gene activity.

中文翻译：

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什么是转录爆发？

基因活性可能不连续的想法不会令许多生物学家惊讶-许多基因在何时何地表达受到限制。然而，在过去的15年中，以“转录突变”这个总称汇编的观测资料引起了人们的极大兴趣。对不连续转录动力学的直接可视化扩展了我们对基本转录机制及其调控的理解，并提供了细胞生命周期中基因活性的实时读数。在这篇综述中，我们试图调和爆裂研究中出现的转录过程的不同观点，以及这项工作如何将不同调节输入对基因活性正常动态范围的相对重要性进行情境化。