ArticleeLife2021
Cost-precision trade-off relation determines the optimal morphogen gradient for accurate biological pattern formation.
Article in eLife, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Position-dependent feedback drives scaling and robustness of morphogen gradients.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Morphogens in the evolution of size, shape and patterning.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2024Review
- Historic obstacles and emerging opportunities in the field of developmental metabolism - lessons from Heidelberg.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2024Review
- Free energy dissipation enhances spatial accuracy and robustness of self-positioned Turing pattern in small biochemical systems.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2023Article
- Patterning, From Conifers to Consciousness: Turing's Theory and Order From Fluctuations.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Spatial boundaries formed during animal development originate from the pre-patterning of tissues by signaling molecules, called morphogens. The accuracy of boundary location is limited by the fluctuations of morphogen concentration that thresholds the expression level of target gene. Producing more morphogen molecules, which gives rise to smaller relative fluctuations, would better serve to shape more precise target boundaries; however, it incurs more thermodynamic cost. In the classical diffusion-depletion model of morphogen profile formation, the morphogen molecules synthesized from a local source display an exponentially decaying concentration profile with a characteristic length λ. Our theory suggests that in order to attain a precise profile with the minimal cost, λ should be roughly half the distance to the target boundary position from the source. Remarkably, we find that the profiles of morphogens that pattern the
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