BioRxiv
bioRxiv Subject Collection: Systems Biology
This feed contains articles for bioRxiv Subject Collection "Systems Biology"
The ability to sense the environment is heterogeneously distributed in cell populations
Channel capacity of signaling networks quantifies their fidelity in sensing extracellular inputs. Low estimates of channel capacities for several mammalian signaling networks suggest that cells can barely detect the presence/absence of environmental signals. However, given the extensive heterogeneity in cell states, we hypothesize that the sensing ability itself varies from cell to cell in a cell state dependent manner. In this work, we present an information theoretic framework to quantify the distribution of sensing abilities from single cell data. Using data on two mammalian pathways, we show that sensing abilities are widely distributed in the population and most cells achieve better resolution of inputs than what is implied by traditional cell state agnostic estimates. We verify these predictions using live cell imaging data on the IGFR/FoxO pathway. Importantly, we identify cell state variables that correlate with cells’ sensing abilities. This information theoretic framework will significantly improve our understanding of how cells sense in their environment.
Goetz, A., Akl, H., Dixit, P. D.
March 11, 2023
http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2023.03.07.531554v1?rss=1