细胞体系中内噪声对弱信号检测的积极作用

在小尺度的生物化学反应体系中内噪声是普遍存在的，本文采用化学Langevin方程研究了细胞体系中内噪声对弱信号检测的作用. 研究发现, 在Hopf分岔点附近, 当弱信号非常小以至于不能独立地激发细胞内的钙尖峰振荡时, 内噪声能够帮助细胞内的钙振荡信号越过一个域值, 并且在一个最佳的内噪声强度下, 内噪声、内噪声诱导的钙振荡和弱信号之间会产生共振现象, 由此极大地增强了细胞体系对弱信号的检测能力. 由于内噪声是通过细胞尺度变化而改变的, 因此这种现象也说明了在对弱信号检测行为中最佳细胞尺度的存在. 研究还发现最佳的细胞尺度与真正的细胞体积是相吻合的, 并且基本不随外界刺激的改变而改变, 这具有重要的生物学意义.

Constructive Role of Internal Noise for the Detection of Weak Signal in Cell System

Taking into account the existence of internal noise in small scale biochemical reaction systems, we studied how the internal noise would influence the detection of weak external signal in the cell system using chemical Langevin equation. The weak signal was too small to, separately, fire calcium spikes for the cell. We found that, near the Hopf bifurcation point, the internal noise could help the calcium oscillation signal cross a threshold value, and at an optimal internal noise level, a resonance occurred among the internal noise, the internal noise-induced calcium oscillations, and the weak signal, so as to enhance intensively the ability of the cell system to detect the weak signal. Since the internal noise was changed via the cell size, this phenomenon demonstrated the existence of an optimal cell size for the signal detection. Interestingly, it was found that the optimal size matched well with the real cell size, which was robust to external stimulus, this was of significant biological meaning.