# Plant responses to auxin signals: an operating principle for dynamical sensitivity yet high resilience

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how negative feedback in auxin signaling networks enhances plant sensitivity to signals while maintaining resilience, through comparative modeling and analysis.

## Contribution

It introduces a new biomolecular model demonstrating that negative feedback increases sensitivity without compromising resilience in auxin signaling.

## Key findings

- Negative feedback enhances signaling sensitivity.
- The system remains highly resilient despite increased sensitivity.
- A new quantitative model of auxin signaling was developed.

## Abstract

Plants depend on the signaling of the phytohormone auxin for their development and for responding to environmental perturbations. The associated biomolecular signaling network involves a negative feedback at the level of the Aux/IAA proteins which mediate the influence of auxin (the signal) on the ARF transcription factors (the drivers of the response). To probe the role of this feedback, we consider alternative in silico signaling networks implementing different operating principles. By a comparative analysis, we find that the presence of a negative regulatory feedback loop allows the system to have a far larger sensitivity in its dynamical response to auxin. At the same time, this sensitivity does not prevent the system from being highly resilient. Given this insight, we reconsider previously published models and build a new quantitative and calibrated biomolecular model of auxin signaling.