Issues

Summary: Over two decades after the publication of 'The Atlas of Mouse Development', a new online resource provides free access to the histological images and their annotations.

Summary: A recent Keystone meeting brought together researchers interested in diverse aspects of endoderm development and highlighted recent major advances in the field.

Summary: This Primer summarises recent efforts to generate human midbrain dopaminergic neurons in vitro, from pluripotent stem cells or from somatic cells via direct reprogramming.

Summary: This review discusses recent advances in the directed differentiation of pluripotent cells into kidney tissues, and how these inform our understanding of human renal development.

Highlighted article: Expression of Atoh1, Pou4f3 and Gfi1 in mouse embryonic stem cells efficiently induces inner ear hair cell differentiation in culture.

Summary: In sea urchin embryos, the germ line marker Vasa, an RNA-binding protein, acts in the soma to control mRNA translation, and is important for developmental reprogramming and wound healing.

Highlighted article: The cellular mechanisms underlying morphogenesis of the dorsal appendages differ significantly between drosophilid species.

Summary: In Arabidopsis, the phytocalpain DEK1 regulates epidermal differentiation by influencing the expression of multiple members of the HD-ZIP IV transcription factor family.

Summary: In developing bone, Vegf expressed in osteolineage precursors regulates early osteoblast differentiation and blood vessel recruitment through interactions with other signalling pathways.

Highlighted article: Leaf positioning follows a stereotyped pattern controlled by auxin distribution. Auxin drainage via the incipient midvein of leaf primordia contributes to this patterning.

Highlighted article: Yorkie, best known for controlling organ growth downstream of Hippo signalling, plays a separable role in regulating cell fate specification in the fly eye.

Summary: Single cell mRNA profiling defines a group of leading cells in migratory neural crest. Key factors expressed in these cells regulate the behaviour of the migrating neural crest population.

Summary: SCHIP1, an ankyrin-associated protein, modulates axon outgrowth and the responses of growth cones to the repulsive guidance cues Sema3F and EphB2 in mouse piriform cortex neurons.

Summary: Cardiac-specific deletion of the para-zinc-finger protein CASZ1 in mouse embryos leads to significant heart defects associated with impaired cardiomyocyte proliferation.

Summary:Drosophila vATPase and mTOR pathway mutants show impaired terminal cell morphogenesis in trachea, but compensatory mechanisms partially rescue tracheal architecture.

Summary: The bHLH transcription factor Emc acts downstream of Notch signalling to promote proliferation in the Drosophila eye by sequestering the growth suppressor Da away from its target genes.

Summary:Lhx1 mutant mice show head truncations. LHX1 regulates formation of the anterior mesendoderm tissue and limits Wnt pathway activity - acting at least partly via the protocadherin PCDH7.