Related papers: The Role of Source Delocalization in the Developme…
The fundamental biological processes of development of tissues and organs in multicellular organisms is governed by various signaling molecules, which are called morphogens. It is known that spatial and temporal variations in concentration…
The fundamental processes of biological development are governed by multiple signaling molecules that create non-uniform concentration profiles known as morphogen gradients. It is widely believed that the establishment of morphogen…
Morphogen gradients play an essential role in the spatial regulation of cell patterning during early development. The classical mechanism of morphogen gradient formation involves the diffusion of morphogens away from a localized source…
Morphogens are proteins, often produced in a localised region, whose concentrations spatially demarcate regions of differing gene expression in developing embryos. The boundaries of expression must be set accurately and in proportion to the…
One of the many ways cells transmit information within their volume is through steady spatial gradients of different proteins. However, the mechanism through which proteins without any sources or sinks form such single-cell gradients is not…
We discovered a class of self-similar solutions in nonlinear models describing the formation of morphogen gradients, the concentration fields of molecules acting as spatial regulators of cell differention in developing tissues. These models…
Morphogenesis of complex body shapes is reproducible despite the noise inherent in the underlying morphogenetic processes. However, how these morphogenetic processes work together to achieve this reproducibility remains unclear. Here, we…
Embryonic development involves pattern formation characterized by the emergence of spatially localized domains characterized by distinct cell fates resulting from differential gene expression. The boundaries demarcating these domains are…
We investigate the effect of time-dependent noise on the shape of a morphogen gradient in a developing embryo. Perturbation theory is used to calculate the deviations from deterministic behavior in a simple reaction-diffusion model of…
We discuss the formation of graded morphogen profiles in a cell layer by nonlinear transport phenomena, important for patterning developing organisms. We focus on a process termed transcytosis, where morphogen transport results from binding…
Understanding the rules underlying organismal development is a major unsolved problem in biology. Each cell in a developing organism responds to signals in its local environment by dividing, excreting, consuming, or reorganizing, yet how…
We present a general theoretical framework to discuss mechanisms of morphogen transport and gradient formation in a cell layer. Trafficking events on the cellular scale lead to transport on larger scales. We discuss in particular the case…
Rhythmic and sequential segmentation of the embryonic body plan is a vital developmental patterning process in all vertebrate species. However, a theoretical framework capturing the emergence of dynamic patterns of gene expression from the…
Spatial distributions of morphogens provide positional information in developing systems, but how the distributions are established and maintained remains an open problem. Transport by diffusion has been the traditional mechanism, but…
Recent advancements in the ability to construct three-dimensional (3D) tissues and organoids from stem cells and biomaterials have not only opened abundant new research avenues in disease modeling and regenerative medicine but also have…
Morphogen profiles play a vital role in biology by specifying position in embryonic development. However, the factors that influence the shape of a morphogen profile remain poorly understood. Since morphogens should provide precise…
Morphogens are secreted signaling molecules that mediate tissue patterning and growth of embryonic tissues. They are secreted in a localized region and spread through the tissue to form a graded concentration profile. We present a…
Concentration gradients play a critical role in embryogenesis, bacterial locomotion, as well as the motility of active particles. Particles develop concentration profiles around them by dissolution, adsorption, or the reactivity of surface…
We propose a unified mechanism that reproduces the sequence of dynamical transitions observed during somitogenesis, the process of body segmentation during embryonic development, that is invariant across all vertebrate species. This is…
Rhythmogenesis, which is critical for many biological functions, involves a transition to coherent activity through cell-cell communication. In the absence of centralized coordination by specialized cells (pacemakers), competing oscillating…