The Hedgehog (Hh) signalling pathway regulates growth and patterning in invertebrates and vertebrates. Although this pathway is well delineated in Drosophila, the more complex vertebrate pathway is not fully understood. Liu and colleagues now reveal that during mouse limb development,intraflagellar transport (IFT) - the transport of cargos along microtubules -regulates the activator and repressor functions of Gli transcription factors,the principal targets of Hh signalling (see p. 3103). They report that mice carrying hypomorphic mutations in Ift88 or Ift52,which encode proteins needed for cilia formation, have defects in ventral neural cell specification and develop polydactyly owing to defects in Gli3 processing and to the loss of Hh signalling. They conclude that IFT is an essential component of the vertebrate Hh ligand-induced signalling cascade that acts downstream of Hh to regulate both Gli activator function and the proteolytic processing of Gli3 into a transcriptional repressor.
Transporting the Hh signal to Gli Free
Transporting the Hh signal to Gli. Development 1 July 2005; 132 (13): e1305. doi:
Download citation file:
Advertisement
Cited by
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.
In preprints
Did you know that Development publishes perspectives on recent preprints? These articles help our readers navigate the ever-growing preprint literature. Together with our preprint highlights service, preLights, these perspectives help our readers navigate the ever-growing preprint literature. We welcome proposals for ‘In preprints’ articles, so please do get in touch if you’d like to contribute.
the Node: Have your say

Our community site, the Node, is conducting a user survey about the content and the design of the site. Help us shape the Node's future and thank you for being a part of the Node over the last 15 years.