Robustness of expression pattern formation due to dynamic equilibrium in gap gene system of an early Drosophila embryo

摘要

The first manifestation of a segmentation pattern in the early Drosophila development is the formation of expression domains of genes belonging to the gap class. In our previous research the phenomenon of the gap system's robustness, exhibited as the ability to reduce highly variable gene expression in the course of development, was explained as a result of gene cross-regulation. In this paper we formulate the rigorous robustness conditions using the inherent properties of gap gene family.