The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, CIT Campus, Taramani, Chennai 600113, India.
Homi Bhabha National Institute, Anushaktinagar, Mumbai 400 094, India.
Phys Biol. 2021 Nov 11;19(1). doi: 10.1088/1478-3975/ac31a3.
We propose a unified mechanism that reproduces the sequence of dynamical transitions observed during somitogenesis, the process of body segmentation during embryonic development, that is invariant across all vertebrate species. This is achieved by combining inter-cellular interactions mediated via receptor-ligand coupling with global spatial heterogeneity introduced through a morphogen gradient known to occur along the anteroposterior axis. Our model reproduces synchronized oscillations in the gene expression in cells at the anterior of the presomitic mesoderm as it grows by adding new cells at its posterior, followed by travelling waves and subsequent arrest of activity, with the eventual appearance of somite-like patterns. This framework integrates a boundary-organized pattern formation mechanism, which uses positional information provided by a morphogen gradient, with the coupling-mediated self-organized emergence of collective dynamics, to explain the processes that lead to segmentation.
我们提出了一个统一的机制，该机制再现了体节形成过程中观察到的动力学转变序列，体节形成是胚胎发育过程中的身体分段过程，在所有脊椎动物物种中都是不变的。这是通过将通过受体-配体偶联介导的细胞间相互作用与通过已知沿前后轴发生的形态发生梯度引入的全局空间异质性相结合来实现的。我们的模型通过在其后部添加新细胞来再现前体节中细胞的基因表达的同步振荡，随后是传播波和随后的活动停止，最终出现类似体节的模式。该框架将边界组织的模式形成机制（该机制使用形态发生梯度提供的位置信息）与偶联介导的集体动力学自组织出现相结合，以解释导致分段的过程。
