Birch Aquarium at Scripps
Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder wondered how the males of the species acquired their sharp hexagonal markings on the ornate boxfish at San Diego’s Birch Aquarium.
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The gorgeous boxfish has an impressive pattern, with meticulous attention to detail in its hexagonal spots and sharp stripes. This type of intricate pattern is so sharp that it baffled engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder. How it came to have this distinctive appearance.
The famous mathematician Alan Turing invented modern computingproposed more than 70 years ago that animals acquired their patterns through the production of chemicals that diffused through skin tissue, similar to coffee creamer. Chemicals interact and other drugs inhibit their activity, resulting in the formation of a pattern. However, Turing’s theory could not explain how patterns could remain so clear in species such as the ornamental boxfish.
In a newly published study, a team of engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder investigated how a mechanism called diffusophoresis creates sharp patterns. Published Wednesday in Science Advances. Diffusion phoresis describes the movement of molecules suspended in a fluid in response to a fluid. concentration gradient Under the influence of another chemical, small particles, in this case chromophores (pigment cells), become concentrated and clump together.
When scientists calculated Turing’s equation modified to include this process, the simulations produced showed that the path of the molecules was always clear, unlike the fuzzy, ill-defined spots created by Turing’s theory alone. It was shown that a contour can be created.
“What we were actually kind of interested in is that if it’s diffuse, the pattern shouldn’t be so sharp…the color shouldn’t be that striking,” the study said. said the co-author. uncle gupta, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. “So what gives these patterns such amazing clarity? That’s where diffusophoresis comes in.”
Engineers discovered that as chemicals diffuse, chromophores Diffusophoresis also drags it along its trajectory, creating spots or stripes with sharper outlines. According to the news release About research.
Gupta said he hopes the findings will encourage further research into diffusophoresis in embryonic and tumor formation, camouflage and other biological processes in species.
“The idea of sharpening the interface is a good one and is definitely important for biological function,” he said. Dr. Andrew Krausis an assistant professor of applied mathematics at Durham University, UK. I studied Turing theory,on mail.
“While mathematical ideas like diffusion often result in ‘smooth’ or continuous interfaces, most boundaries in biological tissues (such as those between organs) are relatively rigid. …This is at least one possible way to sharpen regions of gene expression,” said Kraus, who was not involved in the study.
Turing’s hypothesis first appeared in a paper he wrote in 1952 titled “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis.” His theory argued that animal patterns are not random, but chemical reaction-diffusion processes that systematically produce the spots on a leopard or the stripes on a tiger. University of Warwick.
Diffusion phoresis is a modification proposed to sharpen Turing’s theory based on recent research, but there are other possible solutions, he said. jeremy greenProfessor of Developmental Biology at King’s College London.
“The cells are very sticky and are very unlikely to migrate by diffusophoresis,” Green, who was not involved in the study, said in an email. “Migration of cells to sharpen Turing patterns (or indeed boundaries) is not a new idea and can occur not only by chemotaxis (active cell migration), but also by other mechanisms. ”
Green believes the research is likely to have an impact on future modeling and experimentation, but said there are gaps in Turing’s theory that have yet to be explored. Mr. Green co-authored February 2012 Survey It found evidence supporting Turing’s theory regarding the bulge in the palate of mice.
“We considered other possibilities in our paper and acknowledged that processes like chemotaxis, or cell migration, exist,” Gupta said in an email. “We do not intend to claim that diffusophoresis is the only mechanism, but rather that it exists and has been underestimated. Including diffusophoresis could improve the robustness of such predictions.” can.”