Issues

Summary: This Review discusses the roles of transcription factors, histone modifications and chromatin organization during heart development and repair, highlighting common mechanisms and possible strategies for targeted regeneration.

Highlighted Article: Lineage analysis and long-term labelling studies show that peripheral nerve regeneration is underpinned by the proliferative plasticity of mature cells rather than the activation of a stem cell population.

Summary: Single and double mutants generated in the zebrafish nodal, lefty1 and cerl2/dand5 genes reveal that the mechanisms of left-right patterning are highly conserved between zebrafish and mouse.

Summary: During the development of migrating entheses, one progenitor population establishes a simple embryonic tissue, whereas another population is responsible for its postnatal maturation into a complex structure.

Summary: Endomesoderm development in distantly related sea urchins is controlled by gene regulatory networks that consist of conserved sets of transcription factors and signals, while circuit architecture evolved.

Highlighted Article: The protease inhibitor SWM-1 is secreted from muscle and enters the male gonad to regulate sperm differentiation. SWM-1 is also transferred in seminal fluid, in which it can influence sperm success.

Summary: The FGFR2 ligands FGF3 and FGF10 are required continuously for inner ear morphogenesis, and FGFR2b signaling targets are identified as novel candidates for involvement in inner ear development and function.

Summary: Suppression of microRNA-mediated downregulation of Krüppel-homolog 1 by juvenile hormone prevents the precocious metamorphosis of nymphs and stimulates adult female reproduction in Locusta migratoria.

Summary: The C. elegans cell polarity protein VANG-1 tempers Wnt-mediated neuronal migration by recycling Frizzled receptors from the neuronal membrane.

Summary: GLI3 plays an important, non-cell-autonomous role in maintaining the organization of the precerebellar migratory streams and the final positioning of precerebellar neurons.

Highlighted Article: p53 stabilization and p53-mediated cell death are identified as crucial mechanisms underlying zinc deficiency-induced neural tube defects.

Summary: Depending on the magnitude of Hedgehog (Hh) signaling, Smoothened induces conformational changes in Fused within the Hh signaling complex, responsible for the differential activation of gene responses.

Highlighted Article: The RhoGEF plekhg5 is identified as a blastopore lip-specific gene that, through the organization of actomyosin activity, induces apical constriction, which is required for bottle cell formation during Xenopus gastrulation.

Summary: Shoot branching uses interacting transcriptional regulators to fine-tune the spatiotemporal expression of STM and, thus, to precisely regulate axillary meristem initiation.

Summary: All experimental observation regarding anisotropy of mesoderm constriction in Drosophila may be explained by a simple model that assumes tissue is elastic and the contractile mesodermal domain is asymmetric.