During development in animals with binocular vision, retinal ganglion cell axons from each eye navigate through the optic nerve to the optic chiasm. Here, some axons from the retinal area near the temple project to ipsilateral targets; those from other retinal areas project to contralateral targets. Herrera and colleagues now report that the transcription factor Foxd1 plays a dual role in the formation of the mouse optic chiasm (see p. 5727). Their examination of eye development in Foxd1-null embryos, and of co-cultures of Foxd1-deficient retinas and chiasms, reveals that Foxd1 loss disrupts the expression of Zic2 and EphB1, which direct ipsilateral projection. Surprisingly, many fibres from all over the mutant retinas project ipsilaterally or stall at the optic chiasm. Thus,Foxd1, which is expressed in the retina and the chiasm, helps to specify the outer, ventrotemporal area of the mouse retina and to pattern the brain region...
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 Sadaf Farooqi, 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 30 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.
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