A stepwise model of reaction-diffusion and positional information governs self-organized human peri-gastrulation-like patterning.

ABSTRACT: How position-dependent cell fate acquisition occurs during embryogenesis is a central question in developmental biology. To study this process, we developed a defined, high-throughput assay to induce peri-gastrulation-associated patterning in geometrically confined human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) colonies. We observed that, upon BMP4 treatment, phosphorylated SMAD1 (pSMAD1) activity in the colonies organized into a radial gradient. We developed a reaction-diffusion (RD)-based computational model and observed that the self-organization of pSMAD1 signaling was consistent with the RD principle. Consequent fate acquisition occurred as a function of both pSMAD1 signaling strength and duration of induction, consistent with the positional-information (PI) paradigm. We propose that the self-org

SUBMITTER: Tewary M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5769627 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature