Issues

Summary: In this Editorial, we reflect on a successful first year for The Company of Biologists’ preprint highlighting service, preLights, and consider its role in the future of online scientific discussion and collaboration.

Summary: Colin A. Johnson reflects on the life and work of Jarema Malicki, in particular his contribution towards establishing the zebrafish as a model for medical genetics.

Summary: Cassandra Extavour, recently appointed an editor at Development, discusses her research career, her thoughts on the future of evo-devo research and her advice for young scientists.

Summary: This Review discusses the identification, regulation and heterogeneity of neural stem cells and examines recent insights into their transcriptomic properties and mechanism of persistence into adulthood.

Summary: Analyses of conditional and genetic null mice reveal that HeyL and Hey1 function redundantly in MuSCs, and that HeyL requires Hes1 for effective DNA binding and biological activity.

Summary: Ecrg4-deficient mice reveal that loss of Ecrg4 not only maintains proliferation of neural stem cells in vitro and in vivo, but also enhances spatial recognition and memory.

Summary: Several supporting cell subtypes, in particular pillar cells and Deiters’ cells, act as the source of spontaneously regenerated hair cells in the neonatal mouse cochlea.

Summary: Drosophila caspase 9 (Dronc), which is spatio-temporally activated in a non-apoptotic context, delays epithelial closure and may be involved in ROS generation.

Summary: Cellular, transcriptome and gene functional analyses revealed that tail regeneration of amphioxus is a vertebrate-like epimorphic process, in which the BMP signaling pathway plays key roles.

Summary: Sequence variation in the JAZ degron may influence conformational changes of the OsJAZ1 protein that are needed for efficient signaling, and so confer specificity and sensitivity in JA signaling during rice development.

Summary: TOP1α interacts with SDG8 and recruits RNA polymerase II to promote early transcriptional elongation by maintaining the open chromatin state and adding histone markers associated with active transcription.

Highlighted Article: Sesamoid bones originate from pools of Sox9⁺/Scx⁺ chondroprogenitors, and a combination of genetic and mechanical regulatory programs is applied to achieve anatomical and ultimately functional variation during sesamoid bone development.

Summary: The activity of ATML1, which promotes shoot epidermal cell fate in Arabidopsis thaliana, is post-transcriptionally repressed in the inner cells of the embryos.

Highlighted Article: Global loss of the USP22 deubiquitinase, an integral subunit of the SAGA chromatin remodeler, reveals an unexpected role in the regulation of signaling cascades in endothelial and perivascular cells of the developing mouse placenta.

Highlighted Article: Studies using Nkx2-5, Tbx1 and Fgfr1/Fgfr2 mutant mice reveal how a genetic predisposition to developing a heart defect can combine with short-term gestational hypoxia to cause defects and foetal death.

Summary: Sensory neurons and glia, which breach the epithelial barrier between an organism and its environment, exhibit epithelial properties themselves and develop through mechanisms shared with other epithelia.

Summary: A novel spinal neuronal V2 subtype, V2s, is described in zebrafish embryos and proposed to be required for fast escape responses.

Summary: Nell2 is expressed in the domain of the visual thalamus, where ipsilateral retinal axons terminate, and contributes to establishment of the eye-specific visual projection by specifically inhibiting contralateral retinal axons.

Summary: Regulation of both mRNA transcription and stability plays a crucial role in postnatal liver development; in particular, Cnot complex-mediated mRNA decay is essential for postnatal liver functional maturation.

Summary: Bmp2-conditional mutant analyses support the hypothesis that presumptive crista induces canal genesis zone in the canal pouch to express Bmp2, which promotes canal formation by restricting Ntn1 expression to the resorption domain.