Robustness of the Dorsal morphogen gradient with respect to morphogen dosage
Fig 6
The effect of dl dosage on gradient amplitude in live embryos.
(A) Cross sectional view of a live Drosophila embryo, showing the accumulation of Dl-GFP in the ventral nuclei during late nc 14. (B) Quantification of Dl gradient in live embryos 25 minutes after the start of nc 14. (C) A quantification of the gradient amplitude over time from nc 12 to 14. A canonical curve of gradient amplitude dynamics during nc 14 is plotted in orange. (D) Plot of gradient amplitude (corresponding to the max amplitude during nc 14; see part (C)) of 1x, 2x, and 4x live embryos. The ratios are average plus/minus standard deviation, which were calculated by bootstrap. Whole numbers next to average data points indicate sample sizes. (E) Distributions of amplitude ratios calculated by bootstrap. The normal distributions with the same mean and standard deviation are plotted on top in dashed curves. Mean and standard deviation are depicted on the histogram as dot with errorbars. (F) Comparison of distributions of amplitude ratios obtained computationally (see Fig 5D) and experimentally (dashed black curves; from part (E)). The probability that the experimental 1x:2x amplitude ratio falls between 0.4 and 1 is 0.79 (shaded blue area). The probability that the experimental 4x:2x amplitude ratio falls between 1 and 1.5 is 0.27 (shaded red area).