title: Using fluctuation analysis to establish causal relations between cellular events without experimental perturbation.
abstract: Experimental perturbations are commonly used to establish causal relationships between the molecular components of a pathway and their cellular functions; however, this approach suffers inherent limitations. Especially in pathways with a significant level of nonlinearity and redundancy among components, such perturbations induce compensatory responses that obscure the actual function of the targeted component in the unperturbed pathway. A complementary approach uses constitutive fluctuations in component activities to identify the hierarchy of information flow through pathways. Here, we review the motivation for using perturbation-free approaches and highlight recent advances made in using perturbation-free fluctuation analysis as a means to establish causality among cellular events.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell Biology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas.
authors.forename: Erik S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Welf
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell Biology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas. Electronic address: gaudenz.danuser@utsouthwestern.edu.
authors.forename: Gaudenz
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Danuser
mesh_terms: D055592:Biophysical Phenomena; D015984:Causality; D002477:Cells / Q000378:metabolism*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D015398:Signal Transduction