Gibson, M.C. (2007). Bicoid by the numbers: quantifying a morphogen gradient.  Cell 130(1): 14--16.

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Note

Morphogen gradients are typically analyzed from static images of fixed embryonic tissues. Two papers in this issue of Cell now report live imaging of the Bicoid gradient in developing fruit fly embryos (Gregor et al., 2007a, 2007b). Their findings indicate that the gradient is highly reproducible from embryo to embryo and reveal that the nuclear dynamics of Bicoid are critical for maintaining precision within the gradient.