Related papers: Near-critical gene expression in embryonic boundar…
During embryonic development, a spatial pattern is formed in which proportions are established precisely. As an early pattern formation step in Drosophila embryos, an anterior-posterior gradient of Bicoid (Bcd) induces hunchback (hb)…
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,…
Precise temporal coordination of gene expression is crucial for many developmental processes. One central question in developmental biology is how such coordinated expression patterns are robustly controlled. During embryonic development of…
The simultaneous expression of the hunchback gene in the numerous nuclei of the developing fly embryo gives us a unique opportunity to study how transcription is regulated in living organisms. A recently developed MS2-MCP technique for…
During embryonic development, differentiating cells respond via gene expression to positional cues from morphogen gradients. While gene expression is often highly erratic, embryonic development is precise. We show by theory and simulations…
Genes are frequently regulated in complex manners, necessitating modelling approaches which go beyond simple (linear) gene-to-gene interactions and address the modularity of cis-regulatory regions and alternate transcription initiation…
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…
We fit the parameters of a differential equations model describing the production of gap gene proteins Hunchback and Knirps along the antero-posterior axis of the embryo of \emph{Drosophila}. As initial data for the differential equations…
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…
In early development, regulation of transcription results in precisely positioned and highly reproducible expression patterns that specify cellular identities. How transcription, a fundamentally noisy molecular process, is regulated to…
The early fly embryo offers a relatively pure version of the problem of spatial scaling in biological pattern formation. Within three hours, a "blueprint" for the final segmented body plan of the animal is visible in striped patterns of…
Transcription factors (TFs) are key regulators of gene expression. Based on the classical scenario in which the TF search process switches between one-dimensional motion along the DNA molecule and free Brownian motion in the nucleus, we…
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…
We investigate a mechanism for the robust identification of the center of a developing biological system. We assume the existence of two morphogen gradients, an activator emanating from the anterior, and a co-repressor from the posterior.…
We analyze an inhomogeneous system of coupled reaction-diffusion equations representing the dynamics of gene expression during differentiation of nerve cells. The outcome of this developmental phase is the formation of distinct functional…
Gene expression is inherently noisy, posing a challenge to understanding how precise and reproducible patterns of gene expression emerge in mammals. We investigate this phenomenon using gastruloids, an in vitro model for early mammalian…
In the simplest view of transcriptional regulation, the expression of a gene is turned on or off by changes in the concentration of a transcription factor (TF). We use recent data on noise levels in gene expression to show that it should be…
We present a theory of pattern formation in growing domains inspired by biological examples of tissue development. Gradients of signaling molecules regulate growth, while growth changes these graded chemical patterns by dilution and…
Cell fate decisions in multicellular organisms are precisely coordinated, leading to highly reproducible macroscopic outcomes of developmental processes. The origins of this reproducibility can be found at the molecular level during the…
The first cell fate decisions in the developing fly embryo are made very rapidly : hunchback genes decide in a few minutes whether a given nucleus follows the anterior or the posterior developmental blueprint by reading out the positional…