In the paper we propose certain conditions, relatively easy to verify, which ensure the central limit theorem for some general class of Markov chains. To justify the usefulness of our criterion, we further verify it for a particular discrete-time Markov dynamical system. From the application point of view, the examined system provides a useful tool in analysing the stochastic dynamics of gene expression in prokaryotes.Obviously, V is a Lyapunov function on X 2 , which, due to (B1), satisfies the inequality U V (x, y) ≤ aV (x, y) + 2b for any (x, y) ∈ X 2 . Consequently, referring to Lemma 1.3, we can choose λ ∈ (0, 1) and c λ > 0 so that(2.9)Define T : (X 2 ) N 0 → (X 2 ) N 0 by T ((x n , y n ) n∈N 0 ) = (x n+1 , y n+1 ) n∈N 0 , and letwhere (F k ) k∈N 0 stands for the natural filtration of (φk ) k∈N 0 . Now, put Λ := max{λ, γ}. Using the fact that ρ N K ≤ ρ N J + ρ K • T ρ N J , and, further, applying sequentially the strong Markov property, condition (B5) and inequality (2.9) with m = N , we obtain