Signaling Through Cooperation

摘要

Living cells are complex systems that are constantly making decisions in response to internal or external signals. Among the most notable carriers of information are protein kinases and phosphatases, enzymes that receive inputs from cell surface or internal receptors and determine what actions should be taken in response, by phosphorylating or dephospho-rylating substrates. How are these enzymes organized in the cell to capture and relay information in coordinated responses to signals? On page 1043 of this issue, Breit-kreutz et al. (1) provide a key clue to this puzzle, describing how protein kinases and phosphatases in budding yeast are associated with other proteins and, most notably, with each other.