English

Chemical sensing by nonequilibrium cooperative receptors

Molecular Networks 2013-07-12 v1

Abstract

Cooperativity arising from local interactions in equilibrium receptor systems provides gain, but does not increase sensory performance, as measured by the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) due to a fundamental tradeoff between gain and intrinsic noise. Here we allow sensing to be a nonequilibrium process and show that energy dissipation cannot circumvent the fundamental tradeoff, so that SNR is still optimal for independent receptors. For systems requiring high gain, nonequilibrium 2D-coupled receptors maximize SNR, revealing a new design principle for biological sensors.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1307.2930,
  title  = {Chemical sensing by nonequilibrium cooperative receptors},
  author = {Monica Skoge and Sahin Naqvi and Yigal Meir and Ned S. Wingreen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.2930},
  year   = {2013}
}