Issues

Summary: This Spotlight discusses diverse ways in which scientists can engage with the wider community to further the public understanding of science, and encourage individuals to get involved.

Summary: This Hypothesis presents a mathematical approach to understanding periodic patterning during development, and suggests ways in which molecular, cellular or mechanical models can be tested.

Summary: This Review summarises our current understanding of the early stages of plant embryogenesis, with a focus on how the major lineages are specified.

Highlighted article: Different mouse strains show distinct JAK-Stat and MAPK activity responses to LIF treatment, accounting for the varying ease of generating stem cells from these lines.

Summary: High-throughput screening identifies a subpopulation of mouse mesenchymal progenitors with enhanced osteogenic capacity in both in vivo and in vitro assays.

Highlighted article: The Arabidopsis E3 ubiquitin ligase PUB4 acts downstream of the CLV3/CLE peptides to regulate stem cell division and patterning in the growing root.

Summary: The Arabidopsis AIL and HDG transcription factors exert opposing roles in meristems, acting via physical interactions and shared downstream targets to control proliferation vs. differentiation.

Summary: A component of the Mediator complex, which regulates RNA pol II activity, modulates BMP signalling to render stem cells less prone to differentiation down the neuronal lineage.

Summary: Computational modelling deciphers the connections between the cell-cycle machinery and Notch signalling which govern whether neural stem cells proliferate, differentiate or enter quiescence.

Highlighted article: Growth cones from multiple neuronal types form F-actin-rich protrusions called invadosomes, which are necessary for axonal growth as motor neurons exit the spinal cord.

Highlighted article: In the developing fish caudal vein, β-catenin is activated by BMP in a Wnt-independent manner and cooperates with Aggf1 to control venous endothelial cell differentiation.

Summary: Uhrf1 recruits DNA methyltransferase 1; upon its mutation, cells show enhanced DNA replication but fail to proliferate and ultimately die - leading to reduced organ size.

Summary: Erbb3 knockout mice show cerebellar lamination and subsequent behavioural defects due to impaired proliferation of Bergmann glia - the scaffolds for granule neuron migration.

Summary: BMP signalling is transiently activated in the postnatal mouse retina to terminate the neurogenic program and promote the expression of glial-specific genes.

Summary: Disrupting communication between migrating Ciona cardiac progenitors and their surrounding tissues reveals diverse mechanisms by which neighbouring cells influence directed migration in vivo.

Summary: A subset of cilia proteins are involved in intracellular trafficking of membrane-bound proteins, including planar cell polarity regulators, to non-ciliary locations.

Summary: Iterative Shh and BMP signalling mechanisms induce a dynamic pattern of Shh expression in the mouse facial ectoderm that governs morphogenesis of the underlying mesenchyme.

Summary: In male primodial germ cells, depletion of Smad2 leads to loss of male-specific gene expression, while p38 is required for suppression of retinoic acid signalling and meiosis.

Summary: Drosophila bicoid mutant embryos show severe patterning phenotypes, but individual cells retain wild-type fates - as judged by expression of key patterning genes at single-cell resolution.

Summary: A new Drosophila tool combines clonal analysis with Gal4/UAS-regulated transcription to enable high-throughput screening of gene knockdown or overexpression in mosaic tissues.