@article{1f226214859e49358d13a3d1d2fb199f,
title = "Optimal Decoding of Cellular Identities in a Genetic Network",
abstract = "In developing organisms, spatially prescribed cell identities are thought to be determined by the expression levels of multiple genes. Quantitative tests of this idea, however, require a theoretical framework capable of exposing the rules and precision of cell specification over developmental time. We use the gap gene network in the early fly embryo as an example to show how expression levels of the four gap genes can be jointly decoded into an optimal specification of position with 1% accuracy. The decoder correctly predicts, with no free parameters, the dynamics of pair-rule expression patterns at different developmental time points and in various mutant backgrounds. Precise cellular identities are thus available at the earliest stages of development, contrasting the prevailing view of positional information being slowly refined across successive layers of the patterning network. Our results suggest that developmental enhancers closely approximate a mathematically optimal decoding strategy.",
keywords = "Drosophila, cell fate, cell specification, developmental precision, embryonic patterning, genetic networks, optimality, quantitative imaging",
author = "Petkova, {Mariela D.} and Ga{\v s}per Tka{\v c}ik and William Bialek and Wieschaus, {Eric F.} and Thomas Gregor",
note = "Funding Information: We thank J.O. Dubuis and R. Samanta for help with the experiments and M. Biggin and N. Patel for sharing antibodies used in the pair-rule gene measurements. This work was supported, in part, by U.S. NIH grants ( P50GM071508 , R01GM077599 , and R01GM097275 ), U.S. NSF grants ( PHY-1607612 , CCF-0939370 , Center for the Science of Information; PHY–1734030 , Center for the Physics of Biological Function), an Austrian Science Fund grant ( FWF P28844 to G.T.), and an Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Student Research Fellowship (to M.D.P.). Funding Information: We thank J.O. Dubuis and R. Samanta for help with the experiments and M. Biggin and N. Patel for sharing antibodies used in the pair-rule gene measurements. This work was supported, in part, by U.S. NIH grants (P50GM071508, R01GM077599, and R01GM097275), U.S. NSF grants (PHY-1607612, CCF-0939370, Center for the Science of Information; PHY–1734030, Center for the Physics of Biological Function), an Austrian Science Fund grant (FWF P28844 to G.T.), and an Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Student Research Fellowship (to M.D.P.). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 Elsevier Inc.",
year = "2019",
month = feb,
day = "7",
doi = "10.1016/j.cell.2019.01.007",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "176",
pages = "844--855.e15",
journal = "Cell",
issn = "0092-8674",
publisher = "Cell Press",
number = "4",
}