Regensburg 2013 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 33: Statistical Physics in Biological Systems IV (joint with DY)

BP 33.5: Vortrag

Freitag, 15. März 2013, 10:30–10:45, H44

Optimality principles for bacterial quorum sensing — •Bastian Drees and Ilka Bischofs — BioQuant, Center for Quantitative Analysis of Molecular and Cellular Biosystems at Heidelberg University, Heidelberg

Bacterial signaling networks have to meet the challenge of gathering information from noisy biochemical signals. We introduce a theoretical framework to quantify the accuracy of a signaling process in the presence of noise by defining the resolving power R, the minimal difference between two inputs that is required to separate two outputs. We show that many natural quorum sensing systems - which regulate cell density dependent behavior in bacteria - tend to optimize R at their switching points. We furthermore study how differences in the physical network design affect R as a function of input strength. We find different network architectures to optimize R in different input regimes, which could explain the diversity of quorum sensing architectures that is observed in nature. Together our results suggest the existence of a physics-driven optimal design principle for quorum sensing networks, which could be exploited to facilitate rational design choices in synthetic biology applications.