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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.

What is Cell Signaling?

What is Cell Signaling?

Overview of Cell Signaling

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...

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Overview of Cell Signaling

Interactions Between Signaling Pathways

Interactions Between Signaling Pathways

Signaling cascades usually lack linearity. Multiple pathways interact and regulate one another, allowing cells to integrate and respond to diverse environmental stimuli.
Convergence and divergence, and cross-talk between signaling pathways
Two distinct signaling pathways can converge on a single functional unit, which may either be a single protein or a complex of proteins. The response is either functionally distinct or synergistic between the two pathways but different from the response...

Contact-dependent Signaling

Contact-dependent Signaling

Contact-dependent signaling, as the name suggests, requires that communicating cells be in direct contact with each other. This is achieved either through receptor-ligand interactions or by specialized cytoplasmic channels that allow the flow of small molecules between cells. In animal cells, channels called gap junctions facilitate contact-dependent signaling in certain tissues, whereas, plasmodesmata perform a similar function in plants.
Gap Junctions
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Updated: Apr 7, 2026

Author Spotlight: Advancing Large-Scale Neural Dynamics Through HD-MEA Technology

Author Spotlight: Advancing Large-Scale Neural Dynamics Through HD-MEA Technology

Published on: March 8, 2024

Signaling Connectomics: A Brain-wide Framework for Intercellular Communication.

Jongpil Shin¹, Hyeonsik Oh¹, Yeonji Jeong¹

¹Department of Biological Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Korea.

Experimental Neurobiology

|April 5, 2026

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Signaling connectomics maps brain-wide communication beyond synapses, revealing how diverse signaling pathways shape neural function. This framework links multicellular interactions to brain circuits and behavior.

Keywords:

Intercellular communication Optogenetics Signaling connectomics Spatial transcriptomics

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Published on: May 12, 2019

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Last Updated: Apr 7, 2026

Author Spotlight: Advancing Large-Scale Neural Dynamics Through HD-MEA Technology

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Published on: March 8, 2024

Single-cell Microinjection for Cell Communication Analysis

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3D Scanning Technology Bridging Microcircuits and Macroscale Brain Images in 3D Novel Embedding Overlapping Protocol

3D Scanning Technology Bridging Microcircuits and Macroscale Brain Images in 3D Novel Embedding Overlapping Protocol

Published on: May 12, 2019

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Systems Biology
Molecular Biology

Background:

Understanding brain function necessitates mapping complex intercellular communication networks.
Current models often focus narrowly on synaptic transmission, overlooking broader signaling pathways.

Purpose of the Study:

Introduce "signaling connectomics" as a systems framework to map brain-wide intercellular communication.
Characterize signaling networks beyond conventional synapses, including neuromodulatory, immune, glial, and vascular pathways.
Provide a multidimensional view of how the brain coordinates activity across diverse cell types.

Main Methods:

Integrating targeted perturbations with multiplexed molecular and imaging readouts.
Employing cell-type-specific optogenetics, biosensors, and spatial transcriptomics.
Inferring causal signaling networks operating beyond conventional synapses.

Main Results:

Demonstrated a framework for charting brain-wide signaling across diverse pathways.
Revealed the influence of dynamic receptor landscapes and non-synaptic interactions on neural function.
Enabled systematic mapping of intercellular signaling dynamics and cross-talk in vivo.

Conclusions:

Signaling connectomics challenges circuit-centric models by highlighting the importance of holistic intercellular communication.
This framework provides foundations for linking multicellular signaling to circuit plasticity and behavior.
Offers a new approach to understanding neural coordination and dysfunction.