Cellular costs in the synthesis of glycan information

Many proteins that undergo sequential enzymatic modification in the Golgi cisternae are displayed at the plasma membrane as cell identity markers. The modified proteins, called glycans, represent a molecular code. The fidelity of this glycan code is measured by how accurately the glycan synthesis machinery realises the desired target glycan distribution for a particular cell type and niche. In an earlier work, we brought out the tradeoffs in number of Golgi cisternae, number of glycosylation enzymes and their specificity, required to synthesize a prescribed complex target glycan distribution within a given fidelity. In this work we study how non equilibrium driving in transport and reaction rates affect fidelity of the synthesized glycan distribution.