https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-03850-4
Regular Article
Thermodynamics of signal transduction systems and fluctuation theorem in a signal cascade
1
Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University, Aramaki Aza-Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Japan
2
Department of Drug and Discovery Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, 606-8507, Kyoto, Japan
3
TazukeKofukai Medical Research Institute, Ogimachi, Kita-ku, 530-8480, Osaka, Japan
4
Department of Molecular Biosciences, Radiation Effects Research Foundation, Minami-ku, 732-0815, Hiroshima, Japan
Received:
15
January
2023
Accepted:
27
February
2023
Published online:
23
March
2023
Biochemical chain reactions are signal transduction cascades that can transmit biological information about the intracellular environment. In this study, we modelled a chain reaction as a code string for applying information theory. Herein, we assumed that cell signal transduction selects a strategy to maximize the transduced signal per signal event duration. To investigate the same, we calculated the information transmission capacity of the reaction chain by maximizing the average entropy production rate per reaction time, indicating the idea of the entropy coding method. Moreover, we defined a signal cascade trajectory. Subsequently, we found that the logarithm of the forward and reverse transition ratio per reaction time is equal to the entropy production rate, which derives the form of the fluctuation theorem in signal transduction. Our findings suggest the application of information entropy theory for analysing signal transduction.
© The Author(s) 2023
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