Extracellular-to-intracellular signal transfer via G-proteins

Abstract

We look at the problem of signal transduction by extracellular agonist binding to a receptor protein at the membrane (sensor) via binding of G-proteins (effectors) to a highly integrative target molecule, such as the second messenger cAMP (target). We explore the effects of binding times, effector assignment and effector pool size on the shape of the output signal under different input scenarios. We conclude that low rates of information transfer may sometimes coincide with a high probability or efficiency of plasticity induction.