Estimation of protein diffusion parameters

Protein diffusion offers an essential and elegant mechanism for morphogen gradient formation. Morphogens are signalling molecules that emanate from a particular region of cells and create a gradient, which has an impact on most biological processes, including cell signalling and embryonic development. Using a method that is based on singular spectrum analysis, we estimate parameters introduced in the synthesis diffusion degradation model, which is a commonly applied model for a transcription factor known as bicoid. Our findings, consistent with simulation results, indicate that the proposed method can be practically applied as an enhanced parameter estimation technique with reduced sensitivity to various levels of noise. (c) 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.