The Measure of Success: Constraints, Objectives, and Tradeoffs in Morphogen-mediated Patterning

A large, diverse, and growing number of strategies have been proposed to explain how morphogen gradients achieve robustness and precision. We argue that, to be useful, the evaluation of such strategies must take into account the constraints imposed by competing objectives and performance tradeoffs. This point is illustrated through a mathematical and computational analysis of the strategy of self-enhanced morphogen clearance. The results suggest...