A large number of receptors may reduce cellular response time variation.

摘要: Cells often have tens of thousands receptors, even though only a few activated receptors can trigger full cellular responses. Reasons for the overabundance remain unclear. We suggest that, under certain conditions, large number result in competition among to be first activate cell. The decreases variability time activation, and hence results more synchronous activation cells. argue simple models, this reduction does not necessarily interfere with receptor specificity ligands achieved by kinetic proofreading mechanism. Thus cells accurately specifically signals. predict minimum needed reduce coefficient variation following binding specific ligand. Furthermore, we maximum so that mechanism still improve activation. These predictions fall line experimentally reported numbers multiple systems.