Cells are adept at detecting and responding to their neighbors. Cells must be tuned to their environment, using indications from outside themselves to drive essential cellular milestones such as whether or when to divide, where and whether to migrate and even when to die.
Even single-celled organism— algae, yeast, bacteria—need to sense and respond to outside signals to survive. To perceive and respond to any signals, cells must interpret external signals into a molecular language inside their borders. The internal signals are then transmitted from the cell’s’ surface to its nucleus, the decision-making center.
A new study which was led by computational biologist Dr. Steven Andrews and molecular biologist Dr. Roger Brent, addresses the events that follow when a cell receive external information. Using computational modeling, the biologists discovered the mechanism cells use to transmit some type of signals from their surface to their nucleus, where genetic information of a cell is stored.
To their surprise, they discovered that the mechanism that the cells use is not the obvious and simple way scientists would engineer such a system. They found that the mechanism, known as push-pull control, transmits accurate signals via bags of goo, instead of a wire or something that biologist would use.
Although the mechanism may appear illogical, the push-pull type of signaling could explain why some cancer drugs work as they do, the biologists said.
References
http://www.nature.com/scitable/topic/cell-communication-14122659
https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2016/10/cells-sense-respond-outside-world.html
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