Cell-to-Cell Communication: More is Better — Up to a Point

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“They need to ‘talk’ to each other to interpret the signal, but talking is a noisy process,” said Levchenko, comparing it to the din of a crowded party. “It’s hard to hear what’s happening on the other side of the room. Friends can pass on a message for you, but it gets distorted in all the noise, as in a game of ‘telephone.’ It’s like the famous adage, but with a twist: Bigger is better, but only to a degree.”

How cells communicate is crucial to many biological processes, and could have profound implications for the treatment of breast cancer. Growth factor gradients frequently guide breast cancer cells as they invade surrounding tissues, so understanding the influence of collective cell responses is critical to developing new treatments, said the researchers.

Other impacts extend beyond biology. As electronic circuits get smaller and noisier, the semiconductor industry has increasingly become interested in cellular biology, and in how coupled cell circuits can support information processing. The National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the Semiconductor Research Corporation provided funding for the study.

Levchenko also is a member of the Yale Cancer Center.

The other principal investigators of the studies are Andrew Mugler and Andrew Ewald of Johns Hopkins University and Ilya Nemenman of Emory University.

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