What is the role of oscillatory signals in intracellular systems?

Oscillatory signals are ubiquitously observed in many different intracellular systems such as immune systems and DNA repair processes. While we know how oscillatory signals are created, we do not fully understand what a critical role they play to regulate signal pathway systems in cells. Recently by using a stochastic nucleosome system, we found that a special signal (NFkB signal) in an immune cell can enhance the variability of the immune response to inflammatory stimulations when the signal is oscillatory. Hence in this talk, we discuss the roles of oscillatory and non-oscillatory NFkB signals in an inflammatory system of immune cells as the main example for revealing the role of oscillatory signals. And then we will talk about how this finding can be generalized for other intra- or extra-cellular systems to study why cells use oscillations.