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What is Cell Signaling?

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.

Cell-surface Signaling

Cell-surface Signaling

Hormones—or any molecule that binds to a receptor, known as a ligand—that are lipid-insoluble (water-soluble) are not able to diffuse across the cell membrane. In order to be able to affect a cell without entering it, these hormones bind to receptors on the cell membrane. When a first messenger, a hormone, binds to a receptor, a signal cascade is set off, causing second messengers, proteins inside the cell, to become activated, resulting in downstream effects.

Bacterial Signaling

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Bacterial signaling can occur within bacteria (intracellular) or between bacteria (intercellular). At times, a group of bacteria behaves like a community. To achieve this, they engage in quorum sensing, the perception of higher cell density that causes changes in gene expression. Quorum sensing involves both extracellular and intracellular signaling. The signaling cascade starts with a molecule called an autoinducer (AI). Individual bacteria produce AIs that move out of the bacterial cell...

Yeast Signaling

Yeast Signaling

Yeasts are single-celled organisms, but unlike bacteria, they are eukaryotes (cells with a nucleus). Cell signaling in yeast is similar to signaling in other eukaryotic cells. A ligand, such as a protein or a small molecule released from a yeast cell, attaches to a receptor on the cell surface. The binding stimulates second-messenger kinases to activate or inactivate transcription factors that further regulate gene expression. Many of the yeast intracellular signaling cascades have similar...

Overview of Cell Signaling

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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...

Cell Signaling in Plants

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Plant cells communicate to coordinate their cycle of growth, flowering and fruiting, and activities in roots, shoots, and leaves in response to the changing environmental conditions. Plant signaling is distinct from animal signaling. Plants primarily utilize enzyme-linked receptors, whereas the largest class of cell-surface receptors in animals are G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Unlike animals, receptor tyrosine kinases are rare in plants. Instead, plants have a diverse class of...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 16, 2026

Studying Proteolysis of Cyclin B at the Single Cell Level in Whole Cell Populations

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Published on: September 17, 2012

Decoding Signal Processing at the Single-Cell Level.

H Steven Wiley¹

¹Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99354, USA.

|December 29, 2017

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The feedforward circuit regulating ERK-dependent early response genes integrates signals, rather than detecting signal persistence. This finding clarifies how cells process incoming information for gene expression.

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Last Updated: Feb 16, 2026

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Area of Science:

Molecular Biology
Cell Signaling
Neuroscience

Background:

Early response genes are crucial for cellular responses to stimuli.
Extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK) play a key role in gene regulation.
Understanding signal processing in feedforward circuits is vital.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the functional role of feedforward circuitry in regulating ERK-dependent early response genes.
To determine if this circuitry acts as a signal integrator or a signal persistence detector.

Main Methods:

Utilized computational modeling to simulate gene regulatory networks.
Employed quantitative analysis of signaling dynamics.
Analyzed the behavior of feedforward circuits under various input conditions.

Main Results:

The feedforward circuitry primarily functions as a signal integrator.
Evidence suggests it does not act as a detector for signal persistence.
The circuit's dynamics favor signal summation over sustained detection.

Conclusions:

The feedforward circuit's role in ERK-dependent gene regulation is signal integration.
This mechanism allows for flexible cellular responses based on cumulative input.
The findings challenge previous assumptions about signal persistence detection in such circuits.