Know the single-receptor sensing limit? Think again

TL;DR

This paper critically analyzes conflicting studies on the fundamental physical limits of a cell's ability to sense external ligand concentrations using a single receptor, providing a unifying perspective with broad biological implications.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive critique and synthesis of previous conflicting results, clarifying the true sensing limits of single receptors in biological systems.

Findings

Identifies key differences in previous models and their assumptions.

Provides a unified framework for understanding receptor sensing limits.

Highlights biological implications of sensing accuracy constraints.

Abstract

How cells reliably infer information about their environment is a fundamentally important question. While sensing and signaling generally start with cell-surface receptors, the degree of accuracy with which a cell can measure external ligand concentration with even the simplest device - a single receptor - is surprisingly hard to pin down. Recent studies provide conflicting results for the fundamental physical limits. Comparison is made difficult as different studies either suggest different readout mechanisms of the ligand-receptor occupancy, or differ on how ligand diffusion is implemented. Here we critically analyse these studies and present a unifying perspective on the limits of sensing, with wide-ranging biological implications.