A conserved thermodynamic signature links transcriptome organization to growth state

Transcriptome reorganization across the cell cycle and growth-state transitions is linked to phase-dependent shifts in expressed RNA folding free energies, including enrichment for less negative values under stress.

• Why it matters: Non-equilibrium entropy production may impose higher-order constraints on intracellular organization, but how these thermodynamic effects map onto transcriptome structure across proliferative and stress states is unclear.
• What they did: A stochastic-thermodynamic model ties reduced dissipative drive to transient rises in intracellular configurational entropy, projecting this onto abundance-weighted predicted RNA folding stability across cell-cycle and stress conditions.
• The result: Human cancer cells treated with molecularly targeted agents and nutrient-limited Escherichia coli both show expressed RNA pools enriched for transcripts with less negative RNA folding free energies, with opposing shifts during acquired resistance and bacterial recovery supporting an association with growth state.

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