Issues

Summary: Enrico Coen, winner of the 2016 Waddington Medal, tells us about his career, his research on plant morphogenesis, and his passion for art and book-writing.

Summary: This Primer describes various types of exosomes and their biogenesis, and critically assesses the role of exosomes in developmental signalling.

Summary: This Review discusses how developmental studies have set the stage for direct neuronal reprogramming approaches and how direct conversion can shed light on unsolved questions in developmental biology.

Summary: The maintenance of Drosophila type II neuroblast identity and self-renewal requires Notch-mediated inhibition of negative feedback of Earmuff on its activator Pointed P1.

Summary: Postnatal mouse skin exhibits a decline in its ability to regenerate hair follicles in the wound bed and this can be partially reversed by inhibiting dermal β-catenin activation.

Highlighted article: Pectin-related signaling, rather than absolute pectin levels, are proposed to contribute to cell adhesion during growth and development in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Summary: Detailed morphogenetic analyses reveal the relative contributions of Wnt pathway genes to the regulation of convergence and extension cell behaviors during zebrafish palate development.

Highlighted article: A Shox2-coordinated transcriptional program functions in the osteogenic lineage to regulate Hox-TALE factors and skeletogenesis, and to pattern the mouse limb.

Highlighted article: Short-term gestational hypoxia in developing mouse embryos induces common types of heart defects by activating the unfolded protein response.

Highlighted article: Mud (Drosophila NuMA), a crucial spindle orientation factor, does not require its binding partner Pins (Drosophila LGN) to localize or function in the Drosophila imaginal wing disc.

Summary: The transcription factors Hoxa2, Meis and Pbx act cooperatively on an evolutionarily conserved region downstream of Hmx1 to regulate Hmx1 expression and craniofacial development.

Summary: Cell tracking in a zebrafish model of hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia reveals that the primary defect leading to arteriovenous malformations is misdirected EC migration within lumenized arteries.

Summary: During formation of the Kupffer's vesicle (KV) – the left-right organizer in zebrafish – Eph/ephrin signaling prevents KV cells from intermingling with adjacent cells.

Summary: Conditional deletions of Nkx2.2 in the mouse intestine reveal that Lmx1a functions downstream of Nkx2.2 in serotonin-expressing enterochromaffin cells and regulates Tph1 – a key serotonin synthesis enzyme.

Summary: The analysis of Drosophila embryos lacking APC reveals a diverse set of post-translational modifications that are dependent on APC, one of which regulates β-catenin abundance.

Summary: Cell fate specification and migration in the zebrafish pineal complex are regulated by a network of at least three transcription factors: Tbx2b, Flh and Nr2e3.

Summary: During zebrafish tuberal/anterior hypothalamus development, Shh and Rx3 govern the formation of a distinct progenitor domain that elaborates pattern through its anisotropic growth and differentiation.

Summary: The nuclear protein Dany associates with euchromatic regions in Drosophila spermatocytes, controls the spermatocyte gene expression program, and regulates chromatin-nuclear envelope interactions.

Summary: The FaceBase Consortium is a dynamic, comprehensive resource of craniofacial development, with hundreds of datasets that are freely available to the research community at the FaceBase Hub website.