Green, Jeremy B.A.Sharpe, James2015-11-092015-11-092015Green JB, Sharpe J. Positional information and reaction-diffusion: two big idea in developmental biology combine. Development. 2015; 142(7): 1203-1211. DOI 10.1242/dev.1149910950-1991http://hdl.handle.net/10230/25028One of the most fundamental questions in biology is that of biological pattern: how do the structures and shapes of organisms arise? Undoubtedly, the two most influential ideas in this area are those of Alan Turing’s ‘reaction-diffusion’ and Lewis Wolpert’s ‘positional information’. Much has been written about these two concepts but some confusion still remains, in particular about the relationship between them. Here, we address this relationship and propose a scheme of three distinct ways in which these two ideas work together to shape biological form.application/pdfeng© 2015. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.Imatges, Sistemes d'Biologia del desenvolupamentinfo:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1242/dev.114991Reaction-diffusionBiological patternDevelopmental biologyHistory of ideasinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess