Wnt, a family of secreted signaling proteins, serves diverse functions in embryogenesis, organogenesis, cancer, and stem cell functions. In the context of development, Wnt has been considered a representative morphogen, forming concentration gradients to give positional information to cells or tissues. However, although gradients are often illustrated in schemata, the reality of concentration gradients, or in other words, actual spatial distribution of Wnt ligands, and their behaviors in the extracellular space still remain poorly known. To understand extracellular behavior of Wnt ligands, quantitative analyses such as fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) and fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) are highly informative because Wnt dispersal involves physical and biochemical processes, such as diffusion and binding to or dissociation from cell surface molecules, including heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs). Here, I briefly discuss representative methods to quantify morphogen dynamics. In addition, I discuss molecular manipulations of morphogens, mainly focusing on use of protein binders, and synthetic biology of morphogens as indicators of current and future directions in this field.

Wnt 是分泌信号蛋白家族，在胚胎发生、器官发生、癌症和干细胞功能中发挥多种功能。在发育过程中，Wnt 被认为是代表性的形态发生素，形成浓度梯度以向细胞或组织提供位置信息。然而，尽管梯度经常在图式中说明，但浓度梯度的实际情况，或者换句话说，Wnt 配体的实际空间分布及其在细胞外空间中的行为仍然知之甚少。为了了解 Wnt 配体的细胞外行为，荧光相关光谱 (FCS) 和光漂白后荧光恢复 (FRAP) 等定量分析具有丰富的信息，因为 Wnt 分散涉及物理和生化过程，例如扩散以及与细胞表面分子的结合或解离，包括硫酸乙酰肝素蛋白聚糖 (HSPG)。在这里，我简要讨论量化形态发生素动力学的代表性方法。此外，我还讨论了形态发生素的分子操作，主要关注蛋白质结合剂的使用，以及形态发生素的合成生物学作为该领域当前和未来方向的指标。