Issues

Summary: Development Editors announce a new focus on human developmental biology and discuss how they hope to support this expanding field.

Summary: The use of human tissue, particularly in the generation of chimeric animals, throws up important ethical considerations that scientists and policy-makers must consider.

Summary: The ability to create chimeric animal models using naïve human pluripotent stem cells is now on the horizon. Should we be concerned about using such chimeric animals?

Summary: Early human and mouse embryos exhibit significant differences in their development, reflected in the properties of stem cell lines derived from these embryos.

Summary: Successful disease therapy often requires an in-depth knowledge of basic developmental biology, not only through study of model organisms but crucially also of human tissue.

Summary: A recent Company of Biologists Workshop brought together a diverse group of scientists with a common interest in understanding human development.

Highlighted article: Myocardin-related transcription factors respond to TGFβ signalling and control both the motility of mouse epicardium-derived progenitors and the maturation of coronary vessels.

Highlighted article: The T-box/bHLH-zipper transcription factor Mga controls cell survival in pluripotent cells of the mouse embryo and in embryonic stem cells by regulating polyamine pools.

Summary: The polycomb complex protein Bmi1 is regulated by Notch and is required to maintain stem cell function in the mouse intestine.

Summary: The microtubule-associated protein doublecortin is expressed in a sub-population of Pax7+MyoD- muscle progenitors and modulates cell motility during muscle regeneration in mice.

Summary: The centrosome orientation checkpoint acts in Drosophila germline stem cells but not their progeny to ensure oriented cell division independent of the spindle assembly checkpoint.

Summary: Geminin recruits epigenetic regulators to modulate the expression of hematopoietic multipotency genes and the production of stem/progenitor cells in the fetal hematopoietic system.

Summary: Actomyosin contractility drives cell intercalation to shape the basal stalk in the Drosophila ovary, which in turn controls ovary architecture.

Summary: ROCK regulates cell motility, polarisation, intercalation and division in gastrulating rabbit embryos, revealing a role for Wnt-PCP signalling in primitive streak formation.

Highlighted article: The PCP component Vangl2 regulates Rab11-dependent trafficking to control apical constriction during Xenopus gastrulation, highlighting a new role for PCP signalling.

Highlighted article: The polycomb component Ezh2 regulates the temporal and spatial patterning of the lung, acting to control the phenotypic switch between basal and secretory cells.

Highlighted article: The chromatin remodeler Chd1 promotes a global increase in transcriptional output by both RNA polymerase I and II that sustains the rapid growth of the mouse epiblast.

Summary: The direct binding of Noggin to Wnt modulates non-canonical BMP and Wnt/β-catenin signalling to regulate cell proliferation and cell fate during early tooth development.

Summary: Eph/ephrin signalling between thalamic axons and cortical progenitors regulates neurogenesis the mouse cortex, providing evidence for extra-cortical control of this process.

Summary: Planar polarity in Arabidopsis is shaped by ACTIN-INTERACTING PROTEIN1-2, which is under the control of WEREWOLF-dependent patterning and ethylene signalling.

Summary: In Drosophila sensory neurons, the membrane protein Raw regulates terminal dendrite adhesion via Tricornered kinase and dendrite elongation via cytoskeletal remodelling and Ago1.

Summary: An Ezrin/ELMO/DOCK180/Rac1 complex regulates the cortical actin web in zebrafish and Xenopus multicilliated cells thereby controlling basal body migration, docking and spacing.

Summary: Positional information provided by different patterning mechanisms is integrated via two cis-acting elements to regulate Krox20 expression in the mouse hindbrain.

Summary: The formation of a functional mineralized tendon enthesis, which links tendons to bones, involves Hedgehog-responsive cells and is modulated by muscle loading.

Summary: A spatiotemporal gradient of Wnt signaling, which is known to pattern early vertebrate embryos, regulates the segregation of cell fate in the invertebrate sea star embryo.

Summary: Nuclear positioning in developing skeletal muscle cells is dependent on interactions between kinesin light chains and nesprins, which localize kinesin to the nuclear envelope.