Open AccessLinearization through distortion: a new facet of negative feedback in signalling
Author(s) -
Becskei Attila
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
molecular systems biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 8.523
H-Index - 148
ISSN - 1744-4292
DOI - 10.1038/msb.2009.14
Subject(s) - biology , signalling , distortion (music) , facet (psychology) , linearization , negative feedback , control theory (sociology) , microbiology and biotechnology , control (management) , computer science , physics , nonlinear system , artificial intelligence , telecommunications , electrical engineering , social psychology , engineering , psychology , amplifier , bandwidth (computing) , quantum mechanics , voltage , personality , big five personality traits
Mol Syst Biol. 5: 255Negative feedback is a ubiquitous regulatory motif in physiological systems, and signalling and genetic networks. The benefits of negative feedback in homoeostasis have been appreciated for a long time. It helps keep body temperature, and concentrations of ions and metabolites in a narrow range that is compatible with the proper functioning of the organism (Schmidt and Simon, 1982). A related phenomenon is noise suppression, whereby random changes in the concentration of a component in single cells become biased towards the population mean. In this way, negative feedback can narrow down the variability of gene expression in a cell population so that the cells can operate in concord, even when individually they experience fluctuating external or internal milieus.Although noise suppression has been addressed by a few studies, little attention has been paid to how the mean value of the input signal is converted by negative feedback. A surprising aspect of this signal conversion was revealed by a recent work of Balazsi and his colleagues (Nevozhay et al , 2009). They demonstrate that negative autoregulation can act as a signal linearizer. A linearizer enables a signal to propagate faithfully without distorting its shape. This feature has the potential to greatly enhance the accurate functioning of cells.Much of the prior research in cellular signalling has focused on how cells can amplify the signal and how they can increase the sensitivity of the response, so that a small change in the input is accompanied by a larger relative change in the output. Switch‐like …