Data from: Limits on information transduction through amplitude and frequency regulation of transcription factor activity

Signaling pathways often transmit multiple signals through a single shared transcription factor (TF) and encode signal information by differentially regulating TF dynamics. However, signal information will be lost unless it can be reliably decoded by downstream genes. To understand the limits on dynamic information transduction, we apply information theory to quantify how much gene expression information the yeast TF Msn2 can transduce to target genes in the amplitude or frequency of its activation dynamics. We find that although the amount of information transmitted by Msn2 to single target genes is limited, information transduction can be increased by modulating promoter cis-elements or by integrating information from multiple genes. By correcting for extrinsic noise, we estimate an upper bound on information transduction. Overall, we find that information transduction through amplitude and frequency regulation of Msn2 is limited to error-free transduction of signal identity, but not signal intensity information.信号通路通常通过单一共享的转录因子（transcription factor, TF）传递多种信号，并通过差异调控转录因子的动态变化来编码信号信息。但除非下游基因能够可靠地解码该信号信息，否则信号信息将会丢失。为了探究动态信息转导的限制条件，我们应用信息论（information theory）量化酵母转录因子Msn2能够通过其激活动态的振幅或频率，向靶基因转导多少基因表达信息。研究发现，尽管Msn2向单个靶基因转导的信息量有限，但通过调控启动子顺式作用元件，或是整合来自多个基因的信息，可以提升信息转导效率。通过校正外在噪声（extrinsic noise），我们估算出信息转导的上限。总体而言，我们发现通过Msn2的振幅与频率调控实现的信息转导，仅能实现信号身份的无错误转导，而无法转导信号强度信息。