Ralf Steuer, Changsong Zhou, Jürgen Kurths

• Biochemical and genetic regulatory systems that involve low concentrations of molecules are inherently noisy. This intrinsic stochasticity, has received considerable interest recently, leading to new insights about the sources and consequences of noise in complex systems of genetic regulation. However, most prior work was devoted to the reduction of fluctuation and the robustness of cellular function with respect to intrinsic noise. Here, we focus on several scenarios in which the inherent molecular fluctuations are not merely a nuisance, but act constructively and bring about qualitative changes in the dynamics of the system. It will be demonstrated that in many typical situations biochemical and genetic regulatory systems may utilize intrinsic noise to their advantage. (C) 2002 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved