title: Know the Single-Receptor Sensing Limit? Think Again.
abstract: How cells reliably infer information about their environment is a fundamentally important question. While sensing and signaling generally start with cell-surface receptors, the degree of accuracy with which a cell can measure external ligand concentration with even the simplest device-a single receptor-is surprisingly hard to pin down. Recent studies provide conflicting results for the fundamental physical limits. Comparison is made difficult as different studies either suggest different readout mechanisms of the ligand-receptor occupancy, or differ on how ligand diffusion is implemented. Here we critically analyse these studies and present a unifying perspective on the limits of sensing, with wide-ranging biological implications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Centre for Integrative Systems Biology and Bioinformatics, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Gerardo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Aquino
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA.
authors.forename: Ned S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Wingreen
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Centre for Integrative Systems Biology and Bioinformatics, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Robert G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Endres
keywords: Chemosensing; Information processing; Ligand-receptor binding; Physical limits