A quantum walk model of Bicoid morphogen formation and interpretation

Abstract

The establishment and interpretation of the concentration distribution of the morphogen Bicoid (BCD) is considered crucial for the successful embryonic development of fruit flies. However, the biophysical mechanisms behind the timely formation and subsequent interpretation of the BCD morphogen by its target genes are not yet completely understood. Here a discrete-time, one-dimensional quantum walk model of BCD gradient formation is used to explain both the observed values of diffusivity and its precise interpretation. It is shown that the decoding of positional information from the BCD morphogen by its primary target gene hb, with the observed precision of [~] 10%, takes a time period of less than a second, as expected on the basis of recent experimental observations. From this the on-rate (kon) for the binding of BCD to its target loci is obtained. Furthermore, the model is also used to explain certain key observations of recent optogenetic experiments concerning the time windows for BCD interpretation. Finally, it is argued that the presented model represents a significant step in the utilization of quantum computation-based techniques in studying the dynamics of biological systems in general and in the field of developmental biophysics in particular.