Papers for Journal Club

Driever, W. & Nusslein-Volhard, C. A gradient of bicoid protein in Drosophila embryos. Cell 54, 83-93, doi:0092-8674(88)90182-1 [pii] (1988).

Driever, W. & Nusslein-Volhard, C. The bicoid protein determines position in the Drosophila embryo in a concentration-dependent manner. Cell 54, 95-104, doi:0092-8674(88)90183-3 [pii] (1988).

Driever, W. & Nusslein-Volhard, C. The bicoid protein is a positive regulator of hunchback transcription in the early Drosophila embryo. Nature 337, 138-143, doi:10.1038/337138a0 (1989).

Struhl, G., Struhl, K. & Macdonald, P. M. The gradient morphogen bicoid is a concentration-dependent transcriptional activator. Cell 57, 1259-1273, doi:0092-8674(89)90062-7 [pii] (1989).

These are the papers that showed that Bicoid behaves as a morphogen; Bicoid forms a concentration gradient and induces target genes at a given position.

Gregor, T., Wieschaus, E. F., McGregor, A. P., Bialek, W. & Tank, D. W. Stability and nuclear dynamics of the bicoid morphogen gradient. Cell 130, 141-152, doi:S0092-8674(07)00663-0 [pii]10.1016/j.cell.2007.05.026 (2007).

Gregor, T., Tank, D. W., Wieschaus, E. F. & Bialek, W. Probing the limits to positional information. Cell 130, 153-164, doi:S0092-8674(07)00662-9 [pii] 10.1016/j.cell.2007.05.025 (2007).

The Bicoid gradient is measured quantitatively and the mathematical models put to a test.

Compare to

Bergmann, S. et al. Pre-steady-state decoding of the Bicoid morphogen gradient. PLosBiol 5, e46,  doi:06-PLBI-RA-1783R2 [pii]10.1371/journal.pbio.0050046 (2007).

This is a different interpretation of the data on the Bicoid gradient.

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