Issues

Summary: This Spotlight discusses how and why Wolpert introduced the French Flag metaphor into developmental biology, but how his original idea was probably oversimplified by the community.

Summary: Tissue proportions can adjust to altered cell numbers. This Review discusses scaling mechanisms from a molecular and mathematical perspective.

Highlighted Article: Exploiting naïve human embryonic stem cells, this study generates an in vitro model for primitive endoderm, its expansion, and demonstrates a conserved role for FGF/ERK signalling in its induction.

Highlighted Article: Single cell analysis of human pluripotent stem cell-derived epicardium revealed that epicardial heterogeneity is regulated by the transcription factor BNC1 and separates the cells into two populations with different properties.

Summary: Lar limits insulin signaling to regulate the size and activity of the larval hematopoietic niche in Drosophila.

Highlighted Article: Polymerase-associated factor 1 complex function is required to maintain the neural crest progenitor population in zebrafish.

Summary: Identification of KDM5 as a new transcriptional regulator of the MAPK signaling cascade provides insights into the molecular mechanisms governing the regulation of ecdysone production and developmental growth control.

Summary: PRDM1 mediates transcriptional activation of neural and sensory progenitor genes by recruiting histone demethylases such as Kdm4a to their promoters, but must then be repressed to maintain neural, neural crest and placode cell fates.

Summary: The MDM2-p53 axis determines lung progenitor cell number and subsequent organ size, but not airway patterning and cell differentiation.

Summary: Non-canonical Wnt16 signaling is essential for establishing the position of the early germ layer gene regulatory networks along the anterior-posterior axis, and activates molecular mechanisms necessary for gastrulation and mesenchyme morphogenesis.

Summary: CRISPR-derived deletions reveal the roles of distinct domains from the hemidesmosome sprectraplakin VAB-10 in mechanotransduction during C. elegans morphogenesis.