Kinetics of Morphogen Gradient Formation

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 315; no. 5811; pp. 521 - 525
• Main Authors: Kicheva, Anna, Pantazis, Periklis, Bollenbach, Tobias, Kalaidzidis, Yannis, Bittig, Thomas, Jülicher, Frank, González-Gaitán, Marcos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Association for the Advancement of Science 26.01.2007; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Animals; Animals, Genetically Modified; Arithmetic mean; Biochemistry; Biodegradation; Cellular biology; Diffusion; Diffusion coefficient; Drosophila melanogaster - growth & development; Drosophila melanogaster - metabolism; Drosophila Proteins - metabolism; Endocytosis; Epithelium; Fluorescence; Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching; Genotypes; Insects; Kinetics; Materials; Mathematics; Molecules; Prenatal development; Proto-Oncogene Proteins - metabolism; Recombinant Fusion Proteins - metabolism; Temperature; Wings, Animal - growth & development; Wings, Animal - metabolism; Wnt1 Protein
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1135774

In the developing fly wing, secreted morphogens such as Decapentaplegic (Dpp) and Wingless (Wg) form gradients of concentration providing positional information. Dpp forms a longer-range gradient than Wg. To understand how the range is controlled, we measured the four key kinetic parameters governing morphogen spreading: the production rate, the effective diffusion coefficient, the degradation rate, and the immobile fraction. The four parameters had different values for Dpp versus Wg. In addition, Dynamin-dependent endocytosis was required for spreading of Dpp, but not Wg. Thus, the cellular mechanisms of Dpp and Wingless spreading are different: Dpp spreading requires endocytic, intracellular trafficking.