title: Exploring alternative models of rostral-caudal patterning in the zebrafish neurectoderm with computer simulations.
abstract: The StarLogo and NetLogo programming environments allow developmental biologists to build computer models of cell-cell interactions in an epithelium and visualize emergent properties of hypothetical genetic regulatory networks operating in the cells. These environments were used to explore alternative models that show how a posteriorizing morphogen gradient might define gene-expression domains along the rostral-caudal axis in the zebrafish neurectoderm. The models illustrate how a hypothetical genetic network based on auto-activation and cross-repression could lead to establishment of discrete non-overlapping gene-expression domains.
authors.affiliation: Unit on Vertebrate Neural Development, Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Building 6B, Room 3B 315, 6 Center Drive, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA. chitnisa@mail.nih.gov
authors.forename: Ajay B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Chitnis
authors.forename: Motoyuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Itoh
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019521:Body Patterning / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004475:Ectoderm / Q000502:physiology*; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D008954:Models, Biological; D009024:Morphogenesis; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000196:embryology*