There are two phases of Wnt signalling in early vertebrate embryogenesis:
very early, maternal Wnt signalling promotes dorsal development, and slightly
later, zygotic Wnt signalling promotes ventral and lateral mesoderm induction.
However, recent molecular biology analysis has revealed more complexity among
the direct Wnt target genes, with at least five classes. Here in order to test
the logic and the dynamics of a new Gene Regulatory Network model suggested by
these discoveries we use mathematical modelling based on ordinary differential
equations (ODEs). Our mathematical modelling of this Gene Regulatory Network
reveals that a simplified model, with one "super-gene" for each class is
sufficient to a large extent to describe the regulatory behaviour previously
observed experimentally
