Cellular ability to sense spatial gradients in the presence of multiple competitive ligands

Many eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells can exhibit remarkable sensing ability under small gradients of chemical compounds. In this study, we approach this phenomenon by considering the contribution of multiple ligands to the chemical kinetics within the Michaelis-Menten model. This work was inspired by the recent theoretical findings of Hu et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 048104 (2010)]. Our treatment with practical binding energies and chemical potentials provides results that are consistent with experimental observations.