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Shaping up with morphogen gradients

During embryo development, concentration gradients of signalling molecules instruct formation of different cell types. How these gradients adapt to variable embryo sizes to form a properly scaled individual remains elusive. A simple system of an activator and an inhibitor, with different diffusion properties, may give an answer.

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Fig. 1: Scaling of the Nodal gradient in zebrafish embryos.

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Correspondence to Jeroen Bakkers.

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Garric, L., Bakkers, J. Shaping up with morphogen gradients. Nat Cell Biol 20, 998–999 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-018-0168-2

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