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First published online February 22, 2008
doi: 10.1242/10.1242/dev.012062

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Precision of the Dpp gradient

Tobias Bollenbach^1,*,, Periklis Pantazis^2,*,, Anna Kicheva^2,3,*, Christian Bökel^2,, Marcos González-Gaitán^2,3,¶ and Frank Jülicher^1,¶

¹ Max-Planck-Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzer Strasse 38, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
² Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Pfotenhauer Strasse 108, 01307 Dresden, Germany.
³ Department of Biochemistry, Sciences II, 30 Quai Ernest-Ansermet, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.

^¶ Authors for correspondence (e-mails: marcos.gonzalez{at}biochem.unige.ch; julicher{at}pks.mpg.de)

Accepted 24 December 2007

Morphogen concentration gradients provide positional information by activating target genes in a concentration-dependent manner. Recent reports show that the gradient of the syncytial morphogen Bicoid seems to provide precise positional information to determine target gene domains. For secreted morphogenetic ligands, the precision of the gradients, the signal transduction and the reliability of target gene expression domains have not been studied. Here we investigate these issues for the TGF-β-type morphogen Dpp. We first studied theoretically how cell-to-cell variability in the source, the target tissue, or both, contribute to the variations of the gradient. Fluctuations in the source and target generate a local maximum of precision at a finite distance to the source. We then determined experimentally in the wing epithelium: (1) the precision of the Dpp concentration gradient; (2) the precision of the Dpp signaling activity profile; and (3) the precision of activation of the Dpp target gene spalt. As captured by our theoretical description, the Dpp gradient provides positional information with a maximal precision a few cells away from the source. This maximal precision corresponds to a positional uncertainly of about a single cell diameter. The precision of the Dpp gradient accounts for the precision of the spalt expression range, implying that Dpp can act as a morphogen to coarsely determine the expression pattern of target genes.

Key words: Drosophila, Morphogen, Precision, Wing imaginal disk

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Morphogen gradients: how precise?

Development 2008 135: e606. [Full Text]  

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