Giving space to cell signaling

Spatial separation of component enzymes in a pathway creates microdomains and gradients of signaling activities. Imaging techniques and computational modeling help us to understand the complex relationships between signaling and spatial information. In this issue, Neves et al. (2008) report how the propagation of spatial information is controlled by the shape of hippocampal neurons and feedback and feed-forward motifs of the beta-adrenergic receptor signaling pathway.