Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Continuous Measurement of Biological Noise in Escherichia Coli Using Time-lapse Microscopy

Continuous Measurement of Biological Noise in Escherichia Coli Using Time-lapse Microscopy

Published on: April 27, 2021

Quantifying noise levels of intercellular signals.

Kai Wang¹, Wouter-Jan Rappel, Rex Kerr

¹Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0319, USA.

Physical Review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics

|August 7, 2007

Summary

Cells use multiple receptors to average signals, reducing noise. More receptors lead to near-zero noise but longer signal correlation times, impacting processes like eukaryotic chemotaxis.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Ecological dynamics of pro-tumor and anti-tumor teams in the tumor microenvironment.

Physical biology·2026

Same author

Rewiring miR-22/SNAI1 via CRISPR-based edge editing destabilizes the epithelial phenotype.

NPJ systems biology and applications·2026

Same author

Phase-field approach to cellular blebbing.

Physical review. E·2026

Same author

A biophysical framework for accurately identifying antigen single-amino acid escape variants and corresponding variant-specific compensatory TCR sequences.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026

Same author

The interaction between dynamic ligand signaling and epigenetics in Notch-induced cancer metastasis.

Physical biology·2025

Same author

A multilevel formalism to model the hybrid E/M phenotypes in epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity.

Biophysical journal·2025

Area of Science:

Cellular biology
Biophysics
Signal transduction

Background:

Cells sense their environment using cell surface receptors that bind diffusible chemical signals.
Individual receptor binding events are stochastic, introducing noise into signal detection.
Cells possess numerous receptors, enabling signal averaging to potentially reduce variability.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the relationship between the number of cell surface receptors and signal noise levels.
To characterize the impact of receptor number on signal correlation time.
To understand the implications for cellular processes like eukaryotic chemotaxis.

Main Methods:

Explicit Monte Carlo simulations were employed to model receptor-ligand interactions.

More Related Videos

Quantifying Spatiotemporal Parameters of Cellular Exocytosis in Micropatterned Cells

Quantifying Spatiotemporal Parameters of Cellular Exocytosis in Micropatterned Cells

Published on: September 16, 2020

Electrophysiological Method for Recording Intracellular Voltage Responses of Drosophila Photoreceptors and Interneurons to Light Stimuli In Vivo

Electrophysiological Method for Recording Intracellular Voltage Responses of Drosophila Photoreceptors and Interneurons to Light Stimuli In Vivo

Published on: June 19, 2016

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Continuous Measurement of Biological Noise in Escherichia Coli Using Time-lapse Microscopy

Continuous Measurement of Biological Noise in Escherichia Coli Using Time-lapse Microscopy

Published on: April 27, 2021

Quantifying Spatiotemporal Parameters of Cellular Exocytosis in Micropatterned Cells

Quantifying Spatiotemporal Parameters of Cellular Exocytosis in Micropatterned Cells

Published on: September 16, 2020

Electrophysiological Method for Recording Intracellular Voltage Responses of Drosophila Photoreceptors and Interneurons to Light Stimuli In Vivo

Electrophysiological Method for Recording Intracellular Voltage Responses of Drosophila Photoreceptors and Interneurons to Light Stimuli In Vivo

Published on: June 19, 2016

Analytical calculations were performed to derive theoretical noise levels and correlation times.

The study analyzed noise and correlation time as functions of the total number of receptors.

Main Results:

The residual noise level was shown to approach zero as the number of receptors increases.
The correlation time, representing the time for statistically independent data, was found to diverge for large receptor numbers.
These findings quantify the trade-off between noise reduction and signal responsiveness.

Conclusions:

Increasing receptor numbers effectively reduces stochastic noise in signal detection.
Diverging correlation times at high receptor numbers suggest slower adaptation or memory effects.
The study provides critical insights into the biophysical mechanisms underlying cellular sensing, particularly eukaryotic chemotaxis.