Temporal control of self‐organized pattern formation without morphogen gradients in bacteria

Molecular Systems Biology

Stephen Payne¹  Bochong Li¹  Yangxiaolu Cao¹  David Schaeffer²  Marc D Ryser² 

[1] Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA;Department of Mathematics, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

关键词: morphogen;    pattern formation;    synthetic biology;    systems biology;    temporal control;   

DOI  :  10.1038/msb.2013.55

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

Abstract

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.

Synopsis

The generation of self-organized ring patterns of gene expression in the absence of a morphogen gradient was demonstrated using bacteria programmed by a synthetic gene circuit. This work presents a timing mechanism of pattern formation.

• Using Escherichia coli programmed by a synthetic gene circuit, we demonstrate 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.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC-SA   
Copyright © 2013 EMBO and Macmillan Publishers Limited

Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This license does not permit commercial exploitation without specific permission.