Higher-Order Assemblies in a New Paradigm of Signal Transduction

Recent studies have revealed that multiple intracellular signaling proteins may assemble into structured, yet sometimes infinite, higher-order signaling machines for transmission of receptor activation information to cellular responses. These studies advance our understanding of cell signaling and implicate new molecular mechanisms in proximity-driven enzyme activation, threshold behavior, signal amplification, reduction of biological noise, and temporal and spatial control of signal transduction.