Session T13: Focus Session: Stochastic Processes in Biology II
2:30 PM–5:30 PM, Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Room: B112
Sponsoring Units:
GSNP DBP
Chair: L. Shaw, College of William and Mary
Abstract ID: BAPS.2010.MAR.T13.10
Abstract: T13.00010 : Optimal strategies for timekeeping in cells
4:18 PM–4:30 PM
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Abstract 
Authors:
Andrew Mugler
(Columbia University, Physics)
Aleksandra Walczak
(Princeton University, PCTS)
Chris Wiggins
(Columbia University, APAM, C2B2)
Intracellular ``clocks'' are constrained by the fact that the molecules which oscillate in number to keep time also intrinsically fluctuate in number. Information theory provides natural measures of the reliability with which the oscillatory signal can be extracted from this intrinsic ``noise'' and propagated to other species in the cell. For a simple stochastic clock model, in which a chemical species driven by oscillatory production regulates via copy number a second species, we compute the mutual information between time and copy number for both the regulating and regulated species. The latter requires the full time-dependent joint probability distribution over copy counts, for which we solve accurately and efficiently via eigenfunction expansion. The simplicity of the model permits powerful analytic predictions such as scalings of information with driving frequency and copy number. The efficiency of the computation permits numerical optimization of information over model parameters, revealing, e.g., that different regulation functions are optimal in different biologically relevant regimes.
To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2010.MAR.T13.10