A Comprehensive Network Atlas Reveals That Turing Patterns Are Common but Not Robust

Area of Science:

• Developmental Biology
• Systems Biology
• Theoretical Biology

Background:

• Turing patterns (TPs) are crucial for biological development but are typically observed within narrow parameter ranges.
• The evolutionary origin of TPs remains a significant question due to their sensitivity to parameters.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the design space of Turing patterns (TPs) to understand their evolutionary accessibility.
• To identify design rules for the emergence and stability of TPs in biological systems.

Main Methods:

• Exhaustive analysis of 7,625 two- and three-node biological candidate Turing systems.
• Evaluation of over 3 x 10^11 scenarios to assess TP emergence and parameter sensitivity.
• Deduction of compositional rules governing TP formation.

Main Results:

• Network structure alone does not guarantee TPs; however, over 61% of the network design space can produce them.
• TPs are sensitive to minor variations in parameters, network structure, and regulatory mechanisms.
• Identified compositional rules are nearly necessary and sufficient for TP generation (96% of TP networks contain them, 92% of networks with these rules produce TPs).

Conclusions:

• TP networks are more prevalent than previously assumed, suggesting evolution frequently encounters foundational TP solutions.
• The identified compositional rules provide a blueprint for recognizing natural TPs and engineering synthetic TP systems.