Chapter 8 - Robust signaling by bifunctional components

Question 1

What is the purpose of a signal-transduction circuit?

Answer 1

To take a signal measured by receptors and transduce into the cell.

Question 2

What is an input-output curve?

Answer 2

The concetration of active transcrition factor as a function of the input signal.

Question 3

What is a non-robust signal transduction circuit?

Answer 3

The Input-output curve depends on protein concentrations.

Question 4

What is a conservation law?

Answer 4

E.g. when two subgroups of proteins (Phos and not phos) always total up to the same amount of protein.

Question 5

What is a bifunctional component?

Answer 5

A component that can catalyze two opposing reactions.

Question 6

What is an autokinase?

Answer 6

A protein that phosphorylates itself.

Question 7

What is the idea with bifunctional components in robust systems?

Answer 7

Changing the concentration of the bifunctional component increases both reactions in a signal transduction circuit keeping the response the same no matter the levels of the protein.

Question 8

What is the black box approach?

Answer 8

The entire signal transduction circuit is seen as a black box and to find the input-output curve we consider the fluxes (in the case in the book phosphoryl groups) into and out of the system.

Question 9

What is mass action kinetics?

Answer 9

The rate of a chemical reaction is equal to the product of the concentrations of the reactants and their rate constant.