Cell-to-cell information at a feedback-induced bifurcation point

TL;DR

This paper uses information theory to analyze how intracellular feedback influences cell-to-cell communication, revealing a critical point where mutual information peaks and highlighting a tradeoff between information and correlation time.

Contribution

It demonstrates that cell-to-cell molecule exchange creates a critical point affecting information transfer, a novel insight into intracellular communication dynamics.

Findings

Mutual information peaks at a critical point induced by feedback.

Information scales logarithmically with correlation time.

A strict tradeoff exists between information and correlation time.

Abstract

A ubiquitous way that cells share information is by exchanging molecules. Yet, the fundamental ways that this information exchange is influenced by intracellular dynamics remain unclear. Here we use information theory to investigate a simple model of two interacting cells with internal feedback. We show that cell-to-cell molecule exchange induces a collective two-cell critical point and that the mutual information between the cells peaks at this critical point. Information can remain large far from the critical point on a manifold of cellular states, but scales logarithmically with the correlation time of the system, resulting in an information-correlation time tradeoff. This tradeoff is strictly imposed, suggesting the correlation time as a proxy for the mutual information.