Quantitative analysis of ultrasensitive responses

• DOI: 10.1111/j.1742-4658.2005.04818.x
• Publication Date: 2005-08-10T15:21:35Z
• Authors: Stefan Legewie; Nils Blüthgen; Hanspeter Herzel
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 03 medical and health sciences; Cells; Sensitivity and Specificity

Ultrasensitive responses are common in cellular information transfer because they allow cells to decode extracellular stimuli an all‐or‐none manner. Biochemical usually analyzed by fitting the Hill equation, and estimated coefficient is taken as a measure of sensitivity. However, this approach not appropriate if response under consideration significantly deviates from best‐fit equation. In addition, coefficients greater than unity do necessarily imply ultrasensitive behaviour basal activation significant. order circumvent these problems we propose general method for quantitative analysis sensitivity, relative amplification plot, which based on defined metabolic control analysis. To quantify sensitivity globally (i.e. over whole stimulus range) introduce integral‐based coefficient. Our can easily be extended monotonically decreasing, bell‐shaped or nonsaturated responses.