The precision of biochemical signaling is limited by randomness in the
diffusive arrival of molecules at their targets. For proteins binding to the
specific sites on the DNA and regulating transcription, the ability of the
proteins to diffuse in one dimension by sliding along the length of the DNA, in
addition to their diffusion in bulk solution, would seem to generate a larger
target for DNA binding, consequently reducing the noise in the occupancy of the
regulatory site. Here we show that this effect is largely cancelled by the
enhanced temporal correlations in one dimensional diffusion. With realistic
parameters, sliding along DNA has surprisingly little effect on the physical
limits to the precision of transcriptional regulation.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure