Issues

Summary: Jenny Nichols, winner of the 2017 BSDB Cheryll Tickle Medal, talks about the importance of collaboration throughout her career investigating pluripotency in the mammalian embryo.

Summary: This Primer summarises our current understanding of the diversity of WT1 functions in mammalian tissues and organs and how WT1 mutations can lead to disease.

Summary: This Review describes the gene regulatory networks, signaling pathways, morphogenetic movements and cell dynamics underlying organogenesis of the mammalian pancreas.

Summary: In zebrafish, a tph1b-expressing population of fibroblast-like cells is restricted to the joints of uninjured fins but contributes more broadly during regeneration.

Summary: In the C. elegans germline, a DAF-3 binding element is required for the distal tip cell Notch pathway response to the environment and to DAF-7/TGFβ signaling, modulating developmental expansion of the stem cell pool.

Summary: During dorsoventral patterning of the Drosophila embryo, ventral and lateral aspects of the embryonic Dorsal/NFκB gradient can behave differently in response to variations in Cactus concentration.

Highlighted article: In mice, PLCζ-null sperm fail to trigger the Ca²⁺ oscillations in eggs that normally initiate embryogenesis in mammals, resulting in polyspermy and subfertility but not sterility.

Highlighted article: Globally hypomethylated uhrf1 and dnmt1 mutants mount an interferon response, marking epigenetically damaged cells for immune clearance and limiting transposon activity.

Highlighted article: Oxygen-sensitive hydroxylases regulate HIFα, and consequently nodal, asymmetry in the prospective dorsal and ventral blastula, providing positional bias for dorsoventral patterning.

Summary: Brachyury is a key regulator of mesoderm, but is also found in diploblasts, which lack this tissue layer. Knockout experiments reveal its widespread effects on the endomesodermal gene regulatory network.

Summary: Branch elongation during Drosophila tracheal development mechanistically resembles MyoII-independent collective cell migration; tensile forces resulting from tip cell migration are reduced by cell elongation and passive stalk cell intercalation.

Summary: foxQ2 and six3 form a regulatory module at the top of the gene network governing anterior development of the Tribolium castaneum embryo.

Summary: Bmp4 activates the mesoderm progenitor gene network via key regulators, such as brachyury and Nkx1-2, and prevents premature differentiation to mesodermal-derived lineages.

Summary: Dissecting the genetic programs in distinct regions of the pharyngeal arches illuminates the roles of Edn1 and Jagged-Notch signaling and identifies novel domain-specific genes in craniofacial patterning.