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Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 20: Regulation

BP 20.1: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 29, 2012, 09:30–10:00, H 1058

Precision of sensing, memory, and fluctuating environments — •Robert Endres1,2 and Gerardo Aquino1,21Division of Molecular Biosciences, Imperial College, London, UK — 2Centre for Integrative Systems Biology and Bioinformatics, Imperial College, London, UK

Biological cells are known to sense their chemical environment with astonishing accuracy, crucial for nutrient scavenging, mating, immune response, and development. It is unknown if this sensing near the single-molecule detection limit is due to highly precise single measurements or due to learning over time. In this work, we analyze if cell memory can allow cells to sense beyond current estimates of the fundamental physical limit. By merging Bayesian inference with information theory, we derive analytical formulas which show that memory helps for sensing of correlated fluctuating environments, but not for sensing of strongly uncorrelated fluctuating environments. Despite many analogies with problem-solving strategies in engineering, our theory shows fundamental differences in interpreting noisy stimuli in the microscopic and macroscopic world.

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