Morphogenetic Gradients and the Stability of Boundaries Between Neighboring Morphogenetic Regions

David Holcman, Victor Kasatkin, Alain Prochiantz

Abstract: Morphogens are molecules inducing morphogenetic responses from cells and cell ensembles. The concept of morphogen is related to that of positional value, as the generation of morphological and physiological characteristics is function of position. Based on the observation that homeoproteins, a category of transcription factors with morphogenetic functions, traffic between abutting cells and, very often, regulate their own expression, we develop here a biophysical model of homeoprotein propagation and study the associated mathematical equations.