Only accessible information is useful: insights from gradient-mediated patterning.

ABSTRACT: Information theory is gaining popularity as a tool to characterize performance of biological systems. However, information is commonly quantified without reference to whether or how a system could extract and use it; as a result, information-theoretic quantities are easily misinterpreted. Here, we take the example of pattern-forming developmental systems which are commonly structured as cascades of sequential gene expression steps. Such a multi-tiered structure appears to constitute sub-optimal use of the positional information provided by the input morphogen because noise is added at each tier. However, one must distinguish between the total information in a morphogen and information that can be usefully extracted and interpreted by downstream elements. We demonstrate that quantifying the

SUBMITTER: Tikhonov M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4680620 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature