  Cell-cell communication is often achieved by secreted signaling molecules
that bind membrane-bound receptors. A common class of such receptors are
G-protein coupled receptors, where extracellular binding induces changes on the
membrane affinity near the receptor for certain cytosolic proteins, effectively
altering their chemical potential. We analyze the minimum-dissipation schedules
for dynamically changing chemical potential to induce steady-state changes in
protein copy-number distributions, and illustrate with analytic solutions for
linear chemical reaction networks. Protocols that change chemical potential on
biologically relevant timescales are experimentally accessible using
optogenetic manipulations, and our framework provides non-trivial predictions
about functional dynamical cell-cell interactions.
