Diffusion vs. direct transport in the precision of morphogen readout

Abstract

Morphogen profiles allow cells to determine their position within a developing organism, but the mechanisms behind the formation of these profiles are still not well agreed upon. Here we derive fundamental limits to the precision of morphogen concentration sensing for two canonical models: the diffusion of morphogen through extracellular space and the direct transport of morphogen from source cell to target cell, e.g. via cytonemes. We find that direct transport establishes a morphogen profile without adding extrinsic noise. Despite this advantage, we find that for sufficiently large values of population size and profile length, the diffusion mechanism is many times more precise due to a higher refresh rate of morphogen molecules. Our predictions are supported by data from a wide variety of morphogens in developing organisms.