ArticlePLoS computational biology2024
Liebig's law of the minimum in the TGF-β/SMAD pathway.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Molecular Engineering of the Helminth TGF-β Mimetics, TGM1 and TGM4, Reveals a Novel Antagonist of TGF-β Signaling in Fibroblasts.FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology · 2026Article
- TGFβ signaling systems are prone to inhibition and ligand competition by coreceptor.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Cells use signaling pathways to sense and respond to their environments. The transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) pathway produces context-specific responses. Here, we combined modeling and experimental analysis to study the dependence of the output of the TGF-β pathway on the abundance of signaling molecules in the pathway. We showed that the TGF-β pathway processes the variation of TGF-β receptor abundance using Liebig's law of the minimum, meaning that the output-modifying factor is the signaling protein that is most limited, to determine signaling responses across cell types and in single cells. We found that the abundance of either the type I (TGFBR1) or type II (TGFBR2) TGF-β receptor determined the responses of cancer cell lines, such that the receptor with relatively low abundance dictates the response. Furthermore, nuclear SMAD2 signaling correlated with the abundance of TGF-β receptor in single cells depending on the relative expression levels of TGFBR1 and TGFBR2. A similar control principle could govern the heterogeneity of signaling responses in other signaling pathways.
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