Reliable signal transduction networks by multi-stage regulation: lessons from bacterial chemotaxis

Nir Ben-Tal, Department of Biochemistry Tel-Aviv University

Despite the inherent inaccuracy of their building blocks, it is essential for biochemical processes to attain high levels of accuracy. A general multi-stage regulation model is formulated to demonstrate how biochemical networks are able to achieve unusual precision characteristic of a high fidelity computational process. The general mechanism is incorporated into a model of the bacterial chemotaxis network, and describes this extensively studied system in a novel way. The proposed model is simple and yet it is in accord with all the available experimental data. Moreover, it solves an old puzzle by suggesting a regulatory role for CheAs.