Before revision:  , and consider various abundances of cognate and non-cognate TFs to assess the influence of competitor molecules thatalso move along the DNA . We show that molecular crowding on the DNA always leads to longer times required by TF molecules to locate their target sites as well as to lower occupancy, which may confer a general mechanism to control gene activity levels globally  .
After revision:  , and consider various abundances of cognate and non-cognate TFs to assess the influence of competitor molecules thatalso move along the DNA . We show that molecular crowding on the DNA always leads to longer times required by TF molecules to locate their target sites as well as to lower occupancy, which may confer a general mechanism to control gene activity levels globally . When the `other' molecules are immobile on the DNA, we found a completely different behaviour, namely: the occupancy of the target site is always increased by higher molecular crowding on the DNA .