Find in Library
Search millions of books, articles, and more
Indexed Open Access Databases
Cumulative signal transmission in nonlinear reaction-diffusion networks.
oleh: Diego A Oyarzún, Fernando López-Caamal, Míriam R García, Richard H Middleton, Andrea Y Weiße
| Format: | Article |
|---|---|
| Diterbitkan: | Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2013-01-01 |
Deskripsi
Quantifying signal transmission in biochemical systems is key to uncover the mechanisms that cells use to control their responses to environmental stimuli. In this work we use the time-integral of chemical species as a measure of a network's ability to cumulatively transmit signals encoded in spatiotemporal concentrations. We identify a class of nonlinear reaction-diffusion networks in which the time-integrals of some species can be computed analytically. The derived time-integrals do not require knowledge of the solution of the reaction-diffusion equation, and we provide a simple graphical test to check if a given network belongs to the proposed class. The formulae for the time-integrals reveal how the kinetic parameters shape signal transmission in a network under spatiotemporal stimuli. We use these to show that a canonical complex-formation mechanism behaves as a spatial low-pass filter, the bandwidth of which is inversely proportional to the diffusion length of the ligand.