ArticlePLoS computational biology2015
Accurate encoding and decoding by single cells: amplitude versus frequency modulation.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Long-term quantification and brief-pulse optogenetic perturbation of nucleocytoplasmic GtaC dynamics during Dictyostelium development.microPublication biology · 2026Article
- Intracellularly coupled oscillators for synthetic biology.Nature communications · 2025Review
- Biological physics to uncover cell signaling.Biophysical reviews · 2025Review
- Amplitude and frequency encoding result in qualitatively distinct informational landscapes in cell signaling.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Fluorescent biosensors illuminate the spatial regulation of cell signaling across scales.The Biochemical journal · 2023Review
- Oscillatory ERK Signaling and Morphology Determine Heterogeneity of Breast Cancer Cell Chemotaxis via MEK-ERK and p38-MAPK Signaling Pathways.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Soluble cyclase-mediated nuclear cAMP synthesis is sufficient for cell proliferation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Electrically synchronizing and modulating the dynamics of ERK activation to regulate cell fate.iScience · 2021Article
- Information transmission from NFkB signaling dynamics to gene expression.PLoS computational biology · 2020Article
- Network Motifs Capable of Decoding Transcription Factor Dynamics.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Identifying stochastic oscillations in single-cell live imaging time series using Gaussian processes.PLoS computational biology · 2017Article
- The dynamic mechanism of noisy signal decoding in gene regulation.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Extracellular Electrophysiological Measurements of Cooperative Signals in Astrocytes Populations.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2017Article
- Processing Oscillatory Signals by Incoherent Feedforward Loops.PLoS computational biology · 2016Article
- Systematic Characterization of Dynamic Parameters of Intracellular Calcium Signals.Frontiers in physiology · 2016Article
- Know the Single-Receptor Sensing Limit? Think Again.Journal of statistical physicsArticle
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Cells sense external concentrations and, via biochemical signaling, respond by regulating the expression of target proteins. Both in signaling networks and gene regulation there are two main mechanisms by which the concentration can be encoded internally: amplitude modulation (AM), where the absolute concentration of an internal signaling molecule encodes the stimulus, and frequency modulation (FM), where the period between successive bursts represents the stimulus. Although both mechanisms have been observed in biological systems, the question of when it is beneficial for cells to use either AM or FM is largely unanswered. Here, we first consider a simple model for a single receptor (or ion channel), which can either signal continuously whenever a ligand is bound, or produce a burst in signaling molecule upon receptor binding. We find that bursty signaling is more accurate than continuous signaling only for sufficiently fast dynamics. This suggests that modulation based on bursts may be more common in signaling networks than in gene regulation. We then extend our model to multiple receptors, where continuous and bursty signaling are equivalent to AM and FM respectively, finding that AM is always more accurate. This implies that the reason some cells use FM is related to factors other than accuracy, such as the ability to coordinate expression of multiple genes or to implement threshold crossing mechanisms.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.