How cells translate signals from surroundings into internal signals
Every organism has one aim: to survive. Its body cells all work in concert to keep it alive. They do so through finely tuned means of communication. Together with cooperation partners from Berlin and Cambridge, scientists at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg have now successfully revealed for the first time the laws by which cells translate signals from their surroundings into internal signals. Like an isolated note in a symphony orchestra, an isolated signal in the cell is of subordinate importance. "What is important is the relative variation of intensity and frequency at which the signals are transmitted from the cell membrane into the cell," says Dr. Alexander Skupin, who led the studies at LCSB. The research group published their results now in the scientific journal Science Signaling.
