Integration of cellular signals in chattering environments

TL;DR

This study uses a Boolean model to analyze how eukaryotic cells integrate signals amidst environmental noise, revealing that background fluctuations influence the patterns and effectiveness of cellular information processing.

Contribution

It demonstrates how cellular signal integration patterns depend on environmental noise levels using a computational Boolean modeling approach.

Findings

Signal integration patterns depend on background noise levels.

Cellular responses are sensitive to environmental fluctuations.

Background noise influences information processing capabilities.

Abstract

Cells are constantly exposed to fluctuating environmental conditions. External signals are sensed, processed and integrated by cellular signal transduction networks, which translate input signals into specific cellular responses by means of biochemical reactions. These networks have a complex nature, and we are still far from having a complete characterization of the process through which they integrate information, specially given the noisy environment in which that information is embedded. Guided by the many instances of constructive influences of noise that have been reported in the physical sciences in the last decades, here we explore how multiple signals are integrated in an eukaryotic cell in the presence of background noise, or chatter. To that end, we use a Boolean model of a typical human signal transduction network. Despite its complexity, we find that the network is able to display simple patterns of signal integration. Furthermore, our computational analysis shows that these integration patterns depend on the levels of fluctuating background activity carried by other cell inputs. Taken together, our results indicate that signal integration is sensitive to environmental fluctuations, and that this background noise effectively determines the information integration capabilities of the cell.