Molecular informatics of nano-communication based on cells: A brief survey

In cells, the interactions of DNA, RNA, proteins and messenger molecules decide the major functions ranging from birth to death. Activities of signaling molecules in cells can be formulated in terms of networks in which network structures are represented by topological graphs and their related signaling processes are described by nonlinear dynamics. The cellular signaling process at the nanoscale is a kind of nano-communication, from which we may understand some natural phenomena and explain the mechanisms that generate the phenomena. In this paper, the state of the art of informatics of cellular signaling (also called cell communication) in terms of computer science and signal processing is briefly reviewed. The framework of network informatics from the aspects of signal, information, coding, and control is proposed to explore the principles of nano-communication, which are hoped to be applied to designing nano-communication systems in the near future.