Wnt, Fgf and retinoic acid signalling play a key role in patterning the posterior neural plate to form the midbrain, hindbrain and spinal cord. Despite intense study of Wnt signalling and neural patterning, only a few target transcription factors that mediate spinal cord development have been identified and the mechanism remains unclear. In this issue (p. ), Richard Harland and colleagues reveal a role for Spalt-like 4 (Sall4) in promoting the differentiation of neural progenitor cells in Xenopus via the repression of pou5f3 (oct4). Morpholino-induced knockdown of Sall4 results in defects in neural tube closure and neural differentiation in the embryo, while morpholino injection at the 4-cell stage reduces expression of spinal cord markers hoxb9, hoxc10 and hoxd10 without affecting pan-neuronal identity. The authors find that when Sall4 activity is disrupted, expression of pou5f3 increases, while overexpression of pou5f3 disrupts the expression of key spinal cord identity genes. These data uncover a novel role for Sall4 in neural patterning, with a specific role in spinal cord differentiation.
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April 2014
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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