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Updated: May 24, 2026

Studying Wnt Signaling During Patterning of Conducting Airways
Published on: October 16, 2016
Inhibitory morphogens and monopodial branching of the embryonic chicken lung
Jason P Gleghorn1, Jiyong Kwak, Amira L Pavlovich
1Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.
Background:
Branching morphogenesis generates a diverse array of epithelial patterns, including dichotomous and monopodial geometries. Dichotomous branching can be instructed by concentration gradients of epithelial-derived inhibitory morphogens, including transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ), which is responsible for ramification of the pubertal mammary gland. Here, we investigated the role of autocrine inhibitory morphogens in monopodial branching morphogenesis of the embryonic chicken lung.
Results:
Computational modeling and experiments using cultured organ explants each separately revealed that monopodial branching patterns cannot be specified by a single epithelial-derived autocrine morphogen gradient. Instead, signaling by means of TGFβ1 and bone morphogenetic protein-4 (BMP4) differentially affect the rates of branching and growth of the airways. Allometric analysis revealed that development of the epithelial tree obeys power-law dynamics; TGFβ1 and BMP4 have distinct but reversible effects on the scaling coefficient of the power law.
Conclusions:
These data suggest that although autocrine inhibition cannot specify monopodial branching, inhibitory morphogens define the dynamics of lung morphogenesis.
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