General principles of cell communication

Abstract

Cell-to-cell communication networks play crucial roles in the coordination of a variety of activities that occur inside an organism, such as the growth of tissues or the response of immune cells. Cell-to-cell communication networks, on the other hand, have a far worse understanding of both its function and the engineering concepts that underlie it, in comparison to intracellular signal transduction networks. The regulation of individual cells by intricate intracellular signaling networks, the heterogeneity of individual cells, and the fact that the output of any one cell might recursively become an extra input signal to other cells are three of the major complexities involved. In this study, we make use of a concept that considers intracellular signal transduction networks to be "black boxes" that have input-to-output response linkages that have been defined. In our research on basic cell-to-cell communication circuit motifs, we look for the circumstances that lead to the generation of bimodal responses in time. Additionally, we look for the mechanisms that allow for the separate regulation of synchronization and delay in the responses of cell populations. We use our modeling technique to explain data on cytokine secretion start timings in T cells, which would otherwise seem to be inexplicable. Our method may be used to anticipate the topology of communication networks by making use of input-to-output measurements that are empirically accessible and doing so without having in-depth knowledge of the intermediary phases.