Stochastic Responses May Allow Genetically Diverse Cell Populations to Optimize Performance with Simpler Signaling Networks

• Main Authors: Govern, Christopher C. (Contributor), Chakraborty, Arup K (Author)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Medical Engineering & Science (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemistry (Contributor), Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard (Contributor), Chakraborty, Arup K. (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science, 2013-09-27T17:11:49Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 Two theories have emerged for the role that stochasticity plays in biological responses: first, that it degrades biological responses, so the performance of biological signaling machinery could be improved by increasing molecular copy numbers of key proteins; second, that it enhances biological performance, by enabling diversification of population-level responses. Using T cell biology as an example, we demonstrate that these roles for stochastic responses are not sufficient to understand experimental observations of stochastic response in complex biological systems that utilize environmental and genetic diversity to make cooperative responses. We propose a new role for stochastic responses in biology: they enable populations to make complex responses with simpler biochemical signaling machinery than would be required in the absence of stochasticity. Thus, the evolution of stochastic responses may be linked to the evolvability of different signaling machineries.