Compositional proofreading through critical self-tuning
Author(s)
Karin, Omer
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
High-dimensional multicomponent systems, including immune and epigenetic repertoires, must selectively retain rare, beneficial components while purging a large influx of suboptimal variants. I demonstrate that critical tuning of component control parameters through competition naturally implements proofreading in these systems. Competition for shared inputs pins the system to the marginal stability threshold of the most persistent species. This grants that species an extended lifetime and concentrates a macroscopic fraction of the population in that species, while forcing less-stable variants into rapid drift-driven turnover. When the aggregate drive exceeds a critical influx, pinning fails and all components enter a rapid-turnover regime. Applying this framework to biological memory, I identify the hallmarks of this effect in plasma cell accumulation dynamics and propose that altered pinning dynamics may represent failure points across biological domains, including cancer, immunodeficiencies, and the aberrant activation of harmful genomic elements during aging.
Date Issued
2026-10-30
Date Acceptance
2026-09-23
Citation
Physical Review Letters, 2026, 137 (18)
ISSN
0031-9007
Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)
Journal / Book Title
Physical Review Letters
Volume
137
Issue
18
Copyright Statement
Published by the American Physical Society Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.
License URL
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
188401
Date Publish Online
2026-10-28