Stochastic processing and reproducible responses in living systems.

SILVINA PONCE DAWSON

Workshop; Stochastic dynamics: models and applications; 2017

Innformation transmission in cells often involves changes in theconcentration of "effectors". These changes are "read" by receptorsthat bind molecules one by one. This process is highlystochastic. However cells are able to generate end responses that arequite reproducible. How do cells handle this problem? In this talk Iwill discuss two examples. One related to the development of theantero-posterior axis in fly embryos in which time averaging allowsconcentrations to be inferred with relatively low uncertainty and theother one related to intracellular calcium signals in which thestochastic "firing" of individual channels gives rise to calciumspikes with a certain mean inter-spike frequency.