Recent progress in understanding vertebrate left/right (LR) patterning has raised important questions concerning the role of Nodal in this process.Nodal expression on the left side of the lateral plate during development acts as a left-side determinant that induces left-side-specific morphogenesis. To investigate how Nodal expression is initiated here,Yamamoto and colleagues generated conditional mouse mutants in whichFoxh1 expression — Foxh1 mediates Nodal signalling — was inactivated in the lateral plate mesoderm (LPM). Their results onp. 1795 show that Nodal signalling induces the initiation and expansion of asymmetric Nodalexpression in LPM, as well the expression of Lefty1 at the midline. These findings also shed light on how asymmetric signals are transferred between embryonic tissues during LR patterning: Nodal activity probably travels from the node to the left LPM and from here to the midline.
Interviews with Biologists @ 100 conference speakers
Explore our interviews with keynote speakers from the Biologists @ 100 conference, hosted to celebrate our publisher’s 100th anniversary, where we discuss climate change and biodiversity with Hans-Otto Pörtner and Jane Francis, health and disease with Charles Swanton and emerging technologies with Manu Prakash and Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz.
Call for papers – Lifelong Development: the Maintenance, Regeneration and Plasticity of Tissues
Development invites you to submit your latest research to our upcoming special issue – Lifelong Development: the Maintenance, Regeneration and Plasticity of Tissues. This issue will be coordinated by Guest Editors Meritxell Huch (Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany) and Mansi Srivastava (Harvard University and Museum of Comparative Zoology, USA), working alongside our team of academic Editors. Submit your articles by 15 May 2025.
A case for broadening our view of mechanism in developmental biology
In this Perspective, B. Duygu Özpolat and colleagues survey researchers on their views on what it takes to infer mechanism in developmental biology. They examine what factors shape our idea of what we mean by ‘mechanism’ and suggest a path forward that embraces a broad outlook on the diversity of studies that advance knowledge in our field.
In preprints
How to build a community site for developmental biologists
Our community site, the Node, has been serving the developmental and stem cell biology community for 15 years. In this post, our Community Manager, Joyce Yu, shares how the Node was born and describes how to build a community site from scratch.
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