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Related Concept Videos

Intracellular Signaling Cascades01:24

Intracellular Signaling Cascades

Once a ligand binds to a receptor, the signal is transmitted through the membrane and into the cytoplasm. The continuation of a signal in this manner is called signal transduction. Signal transduction only occurs with cell-surface receptors, which cannot interact with most components of the cell, such as DNA. Only internal receptors can interact directly with DNA in the nucleus to initiate protein synthesis. When a ligand binds to its receptor, conformational changes occur that affect the...
Intracellular Signaling Cascades01:24

Intracellular Signaling Cascades

Once a ligand binds to a receptor, the signal is transmitted through the membrane and into the cytoplasm. The continuation of a signal in this manner is called signal transduction. Signal transduction only occurs with cell-surface receptors, which cannot interact with most components of the cell, such as DNA. Only internal receptors can interact directly with DNA in the nucleus to initiate protein synthesis. When a ligand binds to its receptor, conformational changes occur that affect the...
Overview of Cell Signaling01:23

Overview of Cell Signaling

Despite the protective membrane that separates a cell from the environment, cells need the ability to detect and respond to environmental changes. Additionally, cells often need to communicate with one another. Unicellular and multicellular organisms use a variety of cell signaling mechanisms to communicate with the environment.
Cells respond to many types of information, often through receptor proteins positioned on the membrane. For example, skin cells respond to and transmit touch...
Overview of Cell Signaling01:23

Overview of Cell Signaling

Despite the protective membrane that separates a cell from the environment, cells need the ability to detect and respond to environmental changes. Additionally, cells often need to communicate with one another. Unicellular and multicellular organisms use a variety of cell signaling mechanisms to communicate with the environment.
Cells respond to many types of information, often through receptor proteins positioned on the membrane. For example, skin cells respond to and transmit touch...
Amplifying Signals via Enzymatic Cascade01:22

Amplifying Signals via Enzymatic Cascade

When a ligand binds to a cell-surface receptor, the receptor's intracellular domain changes shape, which may either activate its enzyme function or allow its binding to other molecules. The initial signal is amplified by most signal transduction pathways. This means that a single ligand molecule can activate multiple molecules of a downstream target. Proteins that relay a signal are most commonly phosphorylated at one or more sites, activating or inactivating the protein. Kinases catalyze the...
What is Cell Signaling?02:03

What is Cell Signaling?

Despite the protective membrane that separates a cell from the environment, cells need the ability to detect and respond to environmental changes. Additionally, cells often need to communicate with one another. Unicellular and multicellular organisms use a variety of cell signaling mechanisms to communicate to respond to the environment.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Applications of Spatio-temporal Mapping and Particle Analysis Techniques to Quantify Intracellular Ca2+ Signaling In Situ
09:34

Applications of Spatio-temporal Mapping and Particle Analysis Techniques to Quantify Intracellular Ca2+ Signaling In Situ

Published on: January 7, 2019

Signaling cascades as cellular devices for spatial computations.

Jörg Stelling1, Boris N Kholodenko

  • 1Institute of Computational Science and Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, ETH Zurich, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland. joerg.stelling@inf.ethz.ch

Journal of Mathematical Biology
|February 20, 2008
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Different protein forms

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Last Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Applications of Spatio-temporal Mapping and Particle Analysis Techniques to Quantify Intracellular Ca2+ Signaling In Situ
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Published on: January 7, 2019

A Microfluidics Approach for the Functional Investigation of Signaling Oscillations Governing Somitogenesis
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Area of Science:

  • Cellular signaling
  • Biophysics
  • Systems biology

Background:

  • Signaling networks rely on protein-modification cycles, forming cascades crucial for cellular communication.
  • Spatial separation of opposing enzymes (e.g., kinases/phosphatases, GEFs/GAPs) establishes protein gradients.
  • Differential diffusion of active and inactive protein states drives spatial protein abundance gradients.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how differential protein diffusivities generate spatial gradients in signaling pathways.
  • To derive analytical expressions for spatial gradients in protein-modification cascades.
  • To explore how cascade design influences information processing and spatial guidance.

Main Methods:

  • Developed a discrete spatial approximation for protein-modification cascades.
  • Derived an analytical expression for spatial gradients.
  • Analyzed convergence to an exact solution with decreasing spatial discretization.
  • Simulated different cascade designs to assess information processing.

Main Results:

  • Demonstrated that differing diffusivities of active and inactive protein forms create cytoplasmic gradients.
  • Derived an analytical solution for spatial gradients in cascades, showing convergence to exact solutions.
  • Showcased how cascade topology and kinetics quantitatively determine gradient profiles.
  • Illustrated how cascade designs act as filters, processing input information into precise spatial signals.

Conclusions:

  • Protein-modification cascades can generate precise spatial gradients through differential diffusion.
  • These cascades function as computational devices, determining intracellular protein distributions.
  • The findings enable quantitative analysis of signaling network spatial organization and function.