@article {Reppas125864, author = {Andreas I. Reppas and Eduard A. Jorswieck and Haralampos Hatzikirou}, title = {On the principles of cell decision-making: intracellular coupling improves cell responses fidelity of noisy signals}, elocation-id = {125864}, year = {2017}, doi = {10.1101/125864}, publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory}, abstract = {Reliability of cell fate decision-making is crucial to biological development. Until today it has not been clear what are biology{\textquoteright}s design principles that allow for reliable cell decision making under the influence of noise. Here, we attempt to answer this question by drawing an analogy between cell decision-making and information theory. We show that coupling of intracellular signalling pathway networks makes cell phenotypic responses reliable for noisy signals. As a proof of concept, we show how cis-interaction of the Notch-Delta pathway allows for increased performance under the influence of noise. Interestingly, in this case, the coupling principle leads to an efficient energy management. Finally, our postulated principle offers a compelling argument why cellular encoding is organized in a non-linear and non-hierarchical manner.}, URL = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/04/09/125864}, eprint = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/04/09/125864.full.pdf}, journal = {bioRxiv} }