A Waddington Epigenetic Landscape for the C. elegans embryo

Abstract

Waddington's Epigenetic Landscape provides a visual model for both robust and adaptable development. Generating and exploring a Waddington epigenetic landscape for the early C. elegans embryo suggests that the key shapers of the landscape are genes that lie at the nexus between stress response and behavior and include genes that are regulated by transgenerational neuronal small RNAs. Curiously, several genes shape the early landscape of one lineage and then pattern, differentiate or are enriched in another lineage. Additionally, paralogs with similar expression profiles contribute differently to shaping the modeled landscape. This work suggests that robust embryonic development is initialized by differential deployment of redundant genes and by transgenerational cues that configure the epigenetic landscape to adapt to a changing world.

Does the Inertia of a Cell Depend Upon its Information-Content?

“…The gradual increase in Shannon's mass with differentiation allows this quantity to replace epigenetic tension as a basis for the curvature of a modeled Waddington Epigenetic Landscape (13). Generating a Waddington Epigenetic Landscape using Shannon's mass is a step towards articulating Developmental Spacetime; a conceptual and physical connection between expressed genetic information, cell time and mass and organismal geometry.…”