Efficacy of information transmission in cellular communication

TL;DR

This study investigates how diffusion and advection influence the accuracy of cellular communication, revealing that effective information transfer depends on the Peclet number and exhibits complex scaling behaviors.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative analysis of the combined effects of diffusion and advection on information transmission in cell signaling, highlighting nontrivial scaling regimes.

Findings

Information transmission improves with advection at high Peclet numbers.

Mutual information shows three distinct scaling regimes with Peclet number.

Transport properties critically influence cellular communication efficiency.

Abstract

Inter and intra-cellular signaling are essential for individual cells to execute various physiological tasks and accurately respond to changes in their environment. Signaling is carried out via diffusible molecules, the transport of which is often aided by active processes that provide directional advection. How diffusion and advection together impact the accuracy of information transmission during cell signaling remains less studied. To this end, we study a one-dimensional model of cell signaling and compute the mutual information (MI) as a measure of information transmission. We find that the efficacy of the information transmission improves with advection only when the system parameters result in Peclet number greater than one. Intriguingly, MI exhibits nontrivial scaling with the Peclet number, characterized by three distinct regimes. We demonstrate that the observed dependence of MI on the transport properties of signaling molecules has important consequences on cellular communication.