We study a morphogen gradient formation under nonlinear degradation and subdiffusive transport. In the long-time limit, we obtain the nonlinear effect of degradation-enhanced diffusion, resulting from the interaction of non-Markovian subdiffusive transport with a nonlinear reaction. We find the stationary profile of power-law type, which has implications for robustness, with the shape of the profile being controlled by the anomalous exponent. Far away from the source of morphogens, any changes in the rate of production are not felt.

• Received 16 September 2013
• Revised 17 November 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.89.012107