Dynamics of BMP signaling and distribution during zebrafish dorsal-ventral patterning
- Friedrich Miescher Laboratory of the Max Planck Society, Germany
Abstract
During vertebrate embryogenesis, dorsal-ventral patterning is controlled by the BMP/Chordin activator/inhibitor system. BMP induces ventral fates, whereas Chordin inhibits BMP signaling on the dorsal side. Several theories can explain how the distributions of BMP and Chordin are regulated to achieve patterning, but the assumptions regarding activator/inhibitor diffusion and stability differ between models. Notably, “shuttling” models in which the BMP distribution is modulated by a Chordin-mediated increase in BMP diffusivity have gained recent prominence. Here, we directly test five major models by measuring the biophysical properties of fluorescently tagged BMP2b and Chordin in zebrafish embryos. We found that BMP2b and Chordin diffuse and rapidly form extracellular protein gradients, Chordin does not modulate the diffusivity or distribution of BMP2b, and Chordin is not required to establish peak levels of BMP signaling. Our findings challenge current self-regulating reaction-diffusion and shuttling models and provide support for a graded source-sink mechanism underlying zebrafish dorsal-ventral patterning.
Article and author information
Author details
Katherine W Rogers
Funding
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Patrick Müller
Human Frontier Science Program (Career Development Award CDA00031/2013-C)
- Patrick Müller
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2017, Pomreinke et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 4,783
- views
-
- 630
- downloads
-
- 76
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Citations by DOI
-
- 76
- citations for umbrella DOI https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.25861
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Dynamics of BMP signaling and distribution during zebrafish dorsal-ventral patterning
eLife 6:e25861.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.25861
