Universal dynamics of biological pattern formation in spatio-temporal morphogen variations
Dalwadi, M. P.; Pearce, P.
Show abstract
In biological systems, chemical signals termed morphogens self-organise into patterns that are vital for many physiological processes. As observed by Turing in 1952, these patterns are in a state of continual development, and are usually transitioning from one pattern into another. How do cells robustly decode these spatio-temporal patterns into signals in the presence of confounding effects caused by unpredictable or heterogeneous environments? Here, we answer this question by developing a general theory of pattern formation in spatio-temporal variations of pre-pattern morphogens, which determine gene-regulatory network parameters. Through mathematical analysis, we identify universal dynamical regimes that apply to wide classes of biological systems. We apply our theory to two paradigmatic pattern-forming systems, and predict that they are robust with respect to non-physiological morphogen variations. More broadly, our theoretical framework provides a general approach to classify the emergent dynamics of pattern-forming systems based on how the bifurcations in their governing equations are traversed.
Matching journals
The top 5 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.
Similar papers in this journal
- Dynamic positioning and precision of bistable gene expression boundaries through diffusion and morphogen decay 98%
- Spatial exclusion leads to tug-of-war ecological dynamics between competing species within microchannels 98%
- A theory for self-sustained balanced states in absence of strong external currents 98%
Similar papers in this journal
Similar papers in this journal
"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.