Signal Processing by Simple Chemical Systems

Abstract

Signal processing is one of the most important system control mechanisms across a wide variety of functional devices and mechanisms from electronics to biology. The chemical reaction networks underlying the response of a cell to both externally and internally generated signals comprise an extraordinary real-time multivariate control problem. There are two phenomena that exemplify the biological importance of chemical systems' response to oscillatory signals. One includes a number of important cases of differential cellular response to particular frequencies of periodic chemical signals. The most widespread example of this is the encoding of an external agonist concentration in the frequency of calcium ion concentration spiking inside certain eukaryotic cells. The second is based on the fact that, owing to the low concentrations and slow reaction rates often associated with, for example, the mechanisms of gene expression, a significant amount of fluctuation in protein production rates is to be expected. Th...