Related papers: An Information Theoretical Analysis of Kinase Acti…
Cells can be considered as systems that utilize changes in thermodynamic entropy as information. Therefore, they serve as useful models for investigating the relationships between entropy production and information transmission, i.e.,…
Living cell signaling systems include multistep biochemical signaling reaction cascades (BSCs) comprising modifications of molecular signaling proteins. Substantial data on BSCs have been accumulated in the field of molecular biology and…
We study a mechanism for reliable switching in biomolecular signal-transduction cascades. Steady bistable states are created by system-size cooperative effects in populations of proteins, in spite of the fact that the phosphorylation-state…
A cell has the ability to convert an environmental change into the expression of genetic information through a chain of intracellular signal transduction reactions. Here, we aimed to develop a method for quantifying this signal…
A ubiquitous building block of signaling pathways is a cycle of covalent modification (e.g., phosphorylation and dephosphorylation in MAPK cascades). Our paper explores the kind of information processing and filtering that can be…
G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are central to cellular information processing, yet the physical principles governing their switching behavior remain incompletely understood. We present a first principles theoretical framework, grounded…
Living organisms are non-equilibrium, fluctuating, dynamic systems containing multi-step biological signaling cascades (BSC) with the ability to transduce changes in the concentration of extracellular molecules such as cytokines into…
Cells receive signaling molecules by receptors and relay information via sensory networks so that they can respond properly depending on the type of signal. Recent studies have shown that cells can extract multi-dimensional information from…
Signaling in enzymatic networks is typically triggered by environmental fluctuations, resulting in a series of stochastic chemical reactions, leading to corruption of the signal by noise. For example, information flow is initiated by…
It is well known since the pioneering work of Goldbeter and Koshland [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, vol. 78, pp. 6840-6844 (1981)] that cellular phosphorylation- dephosphorylation cycle (PdPC), catalyzed by kinase and phosphatase under…
Cells use biochemical networks to translate environmental information into intracellular responses. These responses can be highly dynamic, but how the information is encoded in these dynamics remains poorly understood. Here we investigate…
Biochemical signaling cascades transmit intracellular information while dissipating energy under nonequilibrium conditions. We model a cascade as a code string and apply information-entropy ideas to quantify an optimal transmission rate. A…
Signal transduction in biological cells is effected by signaling pathways that typically include multiple feedback loops. Here we analyze information transfer through a prototypical signaling module with biochemical feedback. The module…
Information theory provides powerful tools for understanding communication systems. This analysis can be applied to intercellular signal transduction, which is a means of chemical communication among cells and microbes. We discuss how to…
Cells use temporal dynamical patterns to transmit information via signaling pathways. As optimality with respect to the environment plays a fundamental role in biological systems, organisms have evolved optimal ways to transmit information.…
Based on a thermodynamic analysis of the kinetic model for the protein phosphorylation-dephosphorylation cycle, we study the ATP (or GTP) energy utilization of this ubiquitous biological signal transduction process. It is shown that the…
Living cells display a remarkable capacity to compartmentalize their functional biochemistry. A particularly fascinating example is the cell nucleus. Exchange of macromolecules between the nucleus and the surrounding cytoplasm does not…
Shannon's Capacity Theorem is the main concept behind the Theory of Communication. It says that if the amount of information contained in a signal is smaller than the channel capacity of a physical media of communication, it can be…
We quantify the influence of the topology of a transcriptional regulatory network on its ability to process environmental signals. By posing the problem in terms of information theory, we may do this without specifying the function…
Oscillation is an important cellular process that regulates timing of different vital life cycles. However, in the noisy cellular environment, oscillations can be highly inaccurate due to phase fluctuations. It remains poorly understood how…