Negative-feedback self-regulation contributes to robust and high-fidelity transmembrane signal transduction

TL;DR

This paper introduces a minimal model of transmembrane signaling demonstrating that negative feedback within nanoclusters ensures robust, high-fidelity responses without complex cascade mechanisms.

Contribution

It presents a novel minimal motif model showing how spatially distributed nanoclusters with birth/death dynamics can achieve reliable signaling.

Findings

Nanoclusters with finite lifetime enable robust responses

Spatio-temporal regulation suffices for high-fidelity signaling

Model does not require cascade reactions or fine-tuning

Abstract

We present a minimal motif model for transmembrane cell signaling. The model assumes signaling events taking place in spatially distributed nanoclusters regulated by a birth/death dynamics. The combination of these spatio-temporal aspects can be modulated to provide a robust and high-fidelity response behavior without invoking sophisticated modeling of the signaling process as a sequence of cascade reactions and fine-tuned parameters. Our results show that the fact that the distributed signaling events take place in nanoclusters with a finite lifetime regulated by local production is sufficient to obtain a robust and high-fidelity response.