4 ms·
Ask HN: How do signalling molecules find their targets at large/dense distances?
Though it is understandable that a biology question may be a bit out of range at HN, but maybe you can repurpose some of the data collection and thought algorithms for this question or have a chance to ask someone experienced in biotech etc.
Some time ago I asked a question at biology stackexchenge [1], and it seems it hadn't received a comprehensive answer.
Additional context is that there are ~10K biochemical reactions happening in ~every cell per second and for a signalling molecule to get to its target it needs to get through a rather dense intercellular milieu.
[1] https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/88735/how-do-signalling-molecules-find-their-receptors-at-large-distances
- rolph 3y agospecific signaling, is transported from origin to insertion point by way of ~ persistent "tracks" [1] below is probably most directly relevent to what your asking, but finer detail is here [2][3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracellular_transport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracellular_transport [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_signaling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_signaling [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_transduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_transduction