Patterning by a morphogen gradient and lateral inhibition

Abstract

Patterns emerge in a wide range of systems that initially were homogeneous. We focused on a model of a developing tissue that responds to two types of signals that correspond to two distinct spatial communications, a long-range communication set by a morphogen gradient and interactions between adjacent cells mediated by two transmembrane proteins. Analysing the accessible steady states we saw, for intermediate signals, bistable responses of cells. When cells interact between them, lateral inhibition appears and a fine-grained pattern with a period 2 emerges. Simulating the dynamics we explored different initial conditions and the results agree with the linear stability analysis.