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Updated: Jul 19, 2026

Tracking Morphogenetic Tissue Deformations in the Early Chick Embryo
Published on: October 17, 2011
Information about a form (on the dynamic laws of morphogenesis)
Lev V Beloussov1, Vassily I Grabovsky
1Department of Embryology, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University, Moscow 119899, Russia. lbelous@soil.msu.ru
Abstract:
How a developing embryo becomes "informed" about its form?" This problem remains obscure and controversial. We argue that the "information about a form" is distributed throughout three main components: the dynamic laws, the parameters and the initial/boundary conditions. In the absence of a dynamic law two other components are "blind", that is, do not contain any unambiguous information. We present a version of a dynamic law of morphogenesis, based upon the presumption of a feedback between passive and active mechanical stresses. We explore several models of shape formation based upon this law and show that, as depending upon the parameters values, they generate a large set of realistic shapes. Genetic and epigenetic basis of the models parameters is discussed.
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