Issues

Summary: This Review article discusses the cellular and molecular mechanisms that control cardiomyocyte proliferation, during both heart development and regeneration across various species.

Summary: This Review article provides a comparative view of neuronal repair across vertebrate species, with a particular focus on the molecular pathways that enable repair in some, but not all animals.

Highlighted article: Manipulating expression of the transcription factor Chinmo in Drosophila gonads shows that sexual identity can be reprogrammed, and must be actively maintained throughout life.

Summary: In the mouse airway epithelium, regeneration after injury involves transient downregulation of BMP signaling to promote proliferation, followed by cell shedding to restore cell density.

Summary: In the developing mouse anterior second heart field, the transcription factor MEF2C directly controls expression of the Nodal co-receptor Cripto to regulate outflow tract alignment.

Summary: Gata4 and Gata6 regulate mouse foregut endoderm patterning via control of hedgehog signaling. In their absence, the pancreatic anlage is respecified to intestinal and stomach fates.

Highlighted article: In trophoblast progenitor cells, the transcription factor TFAP2C regulates proliferation and differentiation. Tfap2c mutant mice provide a model of intrauterine growth retardation.

Highlighted article: The C. elegans Makorin homolog lep-2 is a heterochronic gene required for the proper timing of the juvenile-to-adult transition. It acts in the LIN-28/let-7 pathway.

Highlighted article: Cardiac-specific depletion of the H3K4 methyltransferase KMT2D causes dysregulation of genes associated with cell cycle regulation, ion homeostasis and hypoxia signaling.

Summary: A radical/lunatic fringe chimeric allele predicted to affect protein secretion disrupts segmentation clock function and somite patterning with context-dependent effects.

Summary: In Xenopus, Lhx9, a LIM homeodomain protein, acts upstream of integrin-paxillin signaling to control positioning and migration of proepicardial cells, and subsequent epicardium formation.

Summary: Defining and patterning cell fate in the mouse cochlea depends on integration of developmental signals at highly conserved regions of the Atoh1 promoter.

Summary: In C. elegans, depletion of the histone demethylase rbr-2 leads to axon guidance defects that can be attributed to NURF-mediated ectopic expression of the actin regulator wsp-1.

Summary: Maternally deposited Bicaudal-C, an RNA-binding protein, controls Xenopus early embryonic patterning by repressing translation of cell fate regulators, including Wnt11b.

Summary: The endothelial versus myogenic fate choice in the somite requires Foxc1/2. In conditional Foxc1/2 mutants, endothelial cell loss compromises migration of myogenic cells to the limb.

Summary: Neurogenesis at advanced embryonic stages, during the gliogenic phase of spinal cord development, generates neurons of the central canal.

Summary: During Drosophila cellularization, the GTPase Rab8 guides the targeting of cytoplasmic membrane stores to the cell surface through interactions with the exocyst complex.