Issues

Summary: Fly developmental biologist Peter Lawrence talks about his research and career, writing his first grant at age 65, and his time as an editor of Development.

Summary: This Primer summarizes the current range of invasive and non-invasive techniques to measure forces in cells and tissues, and discusses their applications in developmental contexts.

Summary: This Review discusses the complex gene regulatory networks that act in stage-, tissue- and dose-dependent manners to control the development of the cardiac conduction system.

Summary: Runx2 is essential for the osteoblastic differentiation of Prx1- and Sca1-expressing mesenchymal stem cells during intramembranous ossification in mice.

Summary: Genome-wide screens identify direct targets of Notch involved in promoting neural stem cell tumours in Drosophila, tying Notch into the transcription factor network coordinating these stem cells.

Highlighted article: Gene expression analyses reveal that zebrafish epicardial cells are heterogeneous and identify many new epicardial markers, including Caveolin 1, which is shown to be essential for heart regeneration.

Summary: Progenitor cells that generate the midline tissues of the zebrafish floor plate, notochord, and hypochord make germ layer decisions after gastrulation based on local canonical Wnt and Notch signaling.

Highlighted article: Blimp-1, a master regulator of PGC formation in mice, acts downstream of BMPs to generate PGCs in the cricket, highlighting that germ cell specification mechanisms are conserved between mice and crickets.

Highlighted article: Gut epithelium-derived sonic hedgehog acts indirectly on the developing chick enteric nervous system by regulating the composition of the intestinal microenvironment.

Highlighted article: RING1 proteins, which are essential components of Polycomb repressive complex-1, control proximal-distal patterning of the mouse forelimb by integrating developmental signals to regulate MEIS expression.

Summary: The process of neurogenesis in sea urchins shares features with chordate neurogenesis but is distinct from that seen in other ambulacraria, highlighting that deuterostomes employ diverse neurogenic mechanisms.

Summary: Molecular screens and knockdown studies reveal that SoxC and Brn1/2/4 function sequentially during neurogenesis in sea urchin embryos and are required for the differentiation of all neurons.

Summary: Checkpoint suppressor homologue and Jumeau, which are known to govern cardiac progenitor cell divisions, play additional, mutually redundant roles in specifying cardiac mesoderm in Drosophila.

Summary: RNA-seq and the analyses of mutant mice reveal that Prox1 functions as a global regulator of lens fiber cell gene expression and acts in a feedback loop to control the expression of FGF receptors.

Summary: Drosophila testes muscles arise from stem cells and can compensate for fusion defects to safeguard fertility; this plasticity may compensate for the observed lack of satellite cells in Drosophila.

Summary: The genetic deletion of Bmpr1a in mice reveals a dual function for BMP signaling in restricting preosteoblast proliferation and promoting osteoblast activity, probably via regulation of mTORC1.

Summary: The chondrocyte-specific ablation of c-Raf in mice results in a delay in vascular invasion and growth plate maturation due to increased ubiquitin-dependent degradation of VEGF.

Summary: Crim1, a type I transmembrane protein, acts in lens epithelial cells where it colocalizes with and regulates the levels of active β1 integrin to control cell adhesion during mouse lens morphogenesis.