An international team of scientists has identified an activator-inhibitor system that functions to generate patterns in developing vertebrates that was first theorized by renowned mathematician Alan Turing 60 years ago. Turing, who is also considered the father of computer science and helped to crack Nazi Enigma code during World War II, wrote in a 1952 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B paper that chemical substances, called morphogens, could react together and diffuse through a tissue to give rise to patterns such as tentacle patterns on Hydra, whorled leaf patterns in plants, and stripes or spots on big cats like tigers and leopards.
Researchers in the United Kingdom, Japan, and Sweden found that the interaction between two morphogens—fibroblast growth factor and Sonic hedgehog—alternately triggered and hindered cellular activity, leading to the development of ridges, called rugae, in the palates of developing mice. They published their results on the website of ...
