Implications of diffusion and time-varying morphogen gradients for the dynamic positioning and precision of bistable gene expression boundaries.

ABSTRACT: The earliest models for how morphogen gradients guide embryonic patterning failed to account for experimental observations of temporal refinement in gene expression domains. Following theoretical and experimental work in this area, dynamic positional information has emerged as a conceptual framework to discuss how cells process spatiotemporal inputs into downstream patterns. Here, we show that diffusion determines the mathematical means by which bistable gene expression boundaries shift over time, and therefore how cells interpret positional information conferred from morphogen concentration. First, we introduce a metric for assessing reproducibility in boundary placement or precision in systems where gene products do not diffuse, but where morphogen concentrations are permitted to change

SUBMITTER: Perkins ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8195430 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature