Toward a Systems Understanding of Signaling Pathway Function.

A small number of developmental signaling pathways are used repeatedly throughout development in many different contexts. How these pathways interact with each other and the specific cell context to generate a wide range of appropriate responses remains an important question. The application of genomic and proteomic approaches and imaging at high spatiotemporal resolution are providing answers to this question and revealing new levels of complexity. Here, we discuss pathways as complex networks and examples of how signaling outcomes can be influenced by the temporal nature of the signal, its spatial regulation, and the cell context.