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From noise to models to numbers: Evaluating negative binomial models and parameter estimations in single-cell RNA-seq
Fig 2
Comparison of the steady-state mRNA distribution of the telegraph model (Eq (1) denoted as 
) with the effective NB distribution (Eq (6) denoted as 
) for the case of perfectly identical cells (parameters do not vary from cell-to-cell).
The two parameters of the effective NB distribution are chosen so that its first and second moments of mRNA counts exactly agree with those of the telegraph model (the values of the two parameters, 
and 
, are stated to 2 decimal places in the figure). In all four parameter cases, the effective NB distribution exceptionally well fits the corresponding telegraph distribution, and yet only in case (a) we have 
(the classical case of transcriptional bursting). This demonstrates that a good fit of an NB distribution to the telegraph model distribution does not imply the presence of transcriptional bursting.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014014.g002