Temporal control of self-organized pattern formation without morphogen gradients in bacteria.
Journal Article (Journal Article)
Diverse mechanisms have been proposed to explain biological pattern formation. Regardless of their specific molecular interactions, the majority of these mechanisms require morphogen gradients as the spatial cue, which are either predefined or generated as a part of the patterning process. However, using Escherichia coli programmed by a synthetic gene circuit, we demonstrate here the generation of robust, self-organized ring patterns of gene expression in the absence of an apparent morphogen gradient. Instead of being a spatial cue, the morphogen serves as a timing cue to trigger the formation and maintenance of the ring patterns. The timing mechanism enables the system to sense the domain size of the environment and generate patterns that scale accordingly. Our work defines a novel mechanism of pattern formation that has implications for understanding natural developmental processes.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Payne, S; Li, B; Cao, Y; Schaeffer, D; Ryser, MD; You, L
Published Date
- October 8, 2013
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 9 /
Start / End Page
- 697 -
PubMed ID
- 24104480
Pubmed Central ID
- PMC3817405
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1744-4292
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1038/msb.2013.55
Language
- eng
Conference Location
- England