Related papers: Precision of morphogen-driven tissue patterning du…

The precise layout of gene expression patterns is a crucial step in development. Formation of a sharp boundary between high and low expression domains requires a genetic mechanism which is both sensitive and robust to fluctuations, a demand…

During development, cell fates are determined through a combination of intracellular transcriptional regulations and extracellular signaling. As a result, spatial patterns of different cell types arise. We investigate the decision between…

A fundamental task in developmental biology is to identify the mechanisms which drive morphogenesis. In many cases, pattern formation is driven by the positional information determined by both the gradient of maternal factors and hard-wired…

Morphological trends in growing colonies of living cells are at the core of physiological and evolutionary processes. Using active gel equations, which include cell division, we show that shape changes during the growth can be regulated by…

Establishing sharp and correctly positioned boundaries in spatial gene expression patterns is a central task, both in developmental and synthetic biology. We consider situations where a global morphogen gradient provides positional…

The dynamics of cellular pattern formation is crucial for understanding embryonic development and tissue morphogenesis. Recent studies have shown that human dermal fibroblasts cultured on liquid crystal elastomers can exhibit an increase in…

Notch signaling is an evolutionary conserved cell-cell communication pathway. Besides regulating cell-fate decisions at an individual cell level, Notch signaling coordinates the emergent spatiotemporal patterning in a tissue through…

Gene expression in cells is stochastic, yet differentiation is robust. We propose a mechanism in which frustrated genes with weakly stable intermediate expression undergo noise-driven switching between basins of attraction, followed by…

During development, morphogen gradients precisely determine the position of gene expression boundaries despite the inevitable presence of fluctuations. Recent experiments suggest that some morphogen gradients may be interpreted prior to…

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…

Multicellular tissues are the building blocks of many biological systems and organs. These tissues are not static, but dynamically change over time. Even if the overall structure remains the same there is a turnover of cells within the…

Embryonic development is driven by spatial patterns of gene expression that determine the fate of each cell in the embryo. While gene expression is often highly erratic, embryonic development is usually exceedingly precise. In particular,…

We typically think of cells as responding to external signals independently by regulating their gene expression levels, yet they often locally exchange information and coordinate. Can such spatial coupling be of benefit for conveying…

The process of morphogenesis, which can be defined as an evolution of the form of an organism, is one of the most intriguing mysteries in the life sciences. It is clear, that gene expression patterns cannot explain the development of the…

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…

During development, highly ordered structures emerge as cells collectively coordinate with each other. While recent advances have clarified how individual cells process and respond to external signals, understanding collective cellular…

Developmental processes in multicellular organisms occur far from equilibrium, yet produce complex patterns with astonishing reproducibility. We measure the precision and reproducibility of bilaterally symmetric fly wings across the natural…

Organisms result from adaptive processes interacting across different time scales. One such interaction is that between development and evolution. Models have shown that development sweeps over several traits in a single agent, sometimes…

We explain the principles of gene expression pattern stabilization in systems of interacting, diffusible morphogens, with dynamically established source regions. Using a reaction-diffusion model with step-function production term, we…

Cell invasion and spatial pattern formation are two distinct manifestations of cellular self-organisation in development, regeneration, and disease. Here, we develop and analyse a unified theoretical framework that links these two seemingly…