Table 1 Table associated to Figure 1 representing known genetic oscillators that employ transcriptional regulation alone.

(A)

Analytic: Lewis (2003) [41] citing Glass&Mackey (1988) [5]

Experimental: Swinburne et al. (2008) [42]

(B)

Analytic: Widder et al. (2007) [43]. The minimum Hill exponent to make oscillations possible is n = 3.

(C)

Experimental: Atkinson et al. (2003) [6]: The notation 2 + 2 refers to the fact that the DNA loops operate when 2 DNA-bound dimers form a tetramer. It is still not clear if the design functions with competition or not, and this is the reason for employing the 2 + 2 notation instead of the arrows.

(D)

Numeric: Scott et al. (2006) [44] on the Atkinson oscillator.

(E)

Numeric: Guantes&Poyatos (2006) [18] associate their Design I to the Atkinson experimental context. The oscillators they propose due their oscillations to the time-scale difference between activator and repressor life-time. Otherwise, higher multimers than dimers are needed.

(F)

Numeric: Hasty et al. (2002) [45]

Experimental: Stricker et a. (2008) [7]

(G)

Numeric: Smolen et al. (1998) [46]. The activator needs to be at least a dimer for the existence of the oscillations.

(H)

Experimental and numeric: Elowitz&Liebler (2000) [4]: n = 2 from Figure (1) above makes reference to the value employed by Elowitz&Leibler in their model. See also the discussion in the Supporting Information from Buchler et al. (2005) [47].

Analytic: Mueller et al. (2006) [48]: a general case.