Adaptive walks in a gene network model of morphogenesis: insights into the Cambrian explosion.

The emergence of complex patterns of organization close to the Cambrian boundary is known to have happened over a (geologically) short period of time. It involved the rapid diversification of body plans and stands as one of the major transitions in evolution. How it took place is a controversial issue. Here we explore this problem by considering a simple model of pattern formation in multicellular organisms. By modeling gene network-based morphogenesis and its evolution through adaptive walks, we explore the question of how combinatorial explosions might have been actually involved in the Cambrian event. Here we show that a small amount of genetic complexity including both gene regulation and cell-cell signaling allows one to generate an extraordinary repertoire of stable spatial patterns of gene expression compatible with observed anteroposterior patterns in early development of metazoans. The consequences for the understanding of the tempo and mode of the Cambrian event are outlined.

• Publication year

  2003

• Venue

  International Journal of Developmental Biology

• Publication date

  2003-11-10

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Geology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1387/IJDB.14756344arXiv q-bio/0311013PMID 14756344
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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