Figure 2. A–B: Simulations of spontaneous tissue pattern formation starting from stochastically distributed morphogen on a sphere at different time steps.

A: For a strong coupling between curvature and morphogen expression the system shows strong budding (numerics do not perform properly for since the approach is only able to handle medium geometry changes; the likely equilibrium shape consists of fully budded morphogen patches). B: For a weak coupling between curvature and morphogen expression the system reaches a symmetric mechanical equilibrium at . C–D: Equilibrium patterns are insensitive to different choices of initial conditions. C: Plot of total morphogen level during tissue development for different values (green dashed line), (red line) and (blue dotted line). D: Corresponding equilibrium patterns. In all simulations red and blue color depicts high and low morphogen levels, respectively.