Regensburg 2022 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 24: Systems Biology, Gene Expression, Signalling

BP 24.5: Talk

Thursday, September 8, 2022, 12:00–12:15, H16

Stability of gene expression patterns in developmental systems with dynamic morphogen sources — •Maciej Majka — Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

In developmental systems cells determine their fate by decoding chemical signals, called morphogens. In this presentation I will address the problem of gene expression patterns stability in the systems where two diffusible morphogens affect each other production and control the growth of their own source regions. Such systems are encountered in e.g. spinal cord development, limb formation and many others. The reaction-diffusion equation with bi-stable production term is employed as a generic model for this problem. The phase transition is found, between the phase of indeterminate patterning, where region of mixed gene expression is ever growing, and the phase of travelling gene expression patterns, where two expression domains form and preserve a well-defined contact zone. A sub-class of genuinely stationary patterns is then identified, alongside the exact conditions ensuring this stability. This allows me to classify the pattern stability for all possible two-gene regulatory motifs.