ArticleBiophysical journal2010
Shaping a morphogen gradient for positional precision.
Article in Biophysical journal, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 47 citations in OpenAlex.
- Dynamics of bicoid mRNA localisation and translation dictate morphogen gradient formation.The EMBO journal · 2026Article
- Shaping of developmental gradients through selection on multiple loci inScience advances · 2026Article
- Receptor binding and tortuosity explain morphogen local-to-global diffusion coefficient transition.Biophysical journal · 2025Article
- Long-range formation of the Bicoid gradient requires multiple dynamic modes that spatially vary across the embryo.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2024Article
- Precision of morphogen gradients in neural tube development.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Article
- The many bits of positional information.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2021Review
- Article
- Mechanisms and Measurements of Scale Invariance of Morphogen Gradients.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2018Article
- Spatially Different Tissue-Scale Diffusivity Shapes ANGUSTIFOLIA3 Gradient in Growing Leaves.Biophysical journal · 2017Article
- Temporal and spatial dynamics of scaling-specific features of a gene regulatory network in Drosophila.Nature communications · 2015Article
- Probing the impact of temperature on molecular events in a developmental system.Scientific reports · 2015Article
- Spatiotemporal analysis of different mechanisms for interpreting morphogen gradients.Biophysical journal · 2015Article
- Fundamental origins and limits for scaling a maternal morphogen gradient.Nature communications · 2015Article
- Robust and precise morphogen-mediated patterning: trade-offs, constraints and mechanisms.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2015Article
- Adaptation of the length scale and amplitude of the Bicoid gradient profile to achieve robust patterning in abnormally large Drosophila melanogaster embryos.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2014Article
- Uncovering a dynamic feature of the transcriptional regulatory network for anterior-posterior patterning in the Drosophila embryo.PloS one · 2013Article
- A spatial point pattern analysis in Drosophila blastoderm embryos evaluating the potential inheritance of transcriptional states.PloS one · 2013Article
- The role of Bicoid cooperative binding in the patterning of sharp borders in Drosophila melanogaster.Developmental biology · 2012Article
- The effect of the signalling scheme on the robustness of pattern formation in development.Interface focus · 2012Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Morphogen gradients, which provide positional information to cells in a developing tissue, could in principle adopt any nonuniform profile. To our knowledge, how the profile of a morphogen gradient affects positional precision has not been well studied experimentally. Here, we compare the positional precision provided by the Drosophila morphogenetic protein Bicoid (Bcd) in wild-type (wt) embryos with embryos lacking an interacting cofactor. The Bcd gradient in the latter case exhibits decreased positional precision around mid-embryo compared with its wt counterpart. The domain boundary of Hunchback (Hb), a target activated by Bcd, becomes more variable in mutant embryos. By considering embryo-to-embryo, internal, and measurement fluctuations, we dissect mathematically the relevant sources of fluctuations that contribute to the error in positional information. Using this approach, we show that the defect in Hb boundary positioning in mutant embryos is directly reflective of an altered Bcd gradient profile with increasing flatness toward mid-embryo. Furthermore, we find that noise in the Bcd input signal is dominated by internal fluctuations but, due to time and spatial averaging, the spatial precision of the Hb boundary is primarily affected by embryo-to-embryo variations. Our results demonstrate that the positional information provided by the wt Bcd gradient profile is highly precise and necessary for patterning precision.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.