Issues

Summary: Neural crest is regionalized into distinct cell populations along the anteroposterior axis. This Review explores how varied approaches have shaped our understanding of the developmental and evolutionary origins of this pattern.

Summary: This Review outlines the major discoveries in neural crest lineage tracing and how these have been refined to extend beyond development to regeneration and cancer initiation.

Summary: This Review covers the recent reports that cardiac neural crest cells can adopt a cardiomyocyte cell fate and that these cells may play important roles in the cardiac regeneration response to injury.

Highlighted Article: The hierarchical requirements for RUNX1, GFI1 and/or GFI1B during early human haematopoiesis arising from a yolk sac-like haemogenic endothelial intermediate.

Summary: Similar to an Apterous-Chip mechanism that patterns the Drosophila wing blade, the interaction between mammalian orthologs Lhx2 and Ldb1 regulates multiple aspects of hippocampal development in the mouse.

Highlighted Article: Going beyond classic two-component Turing Reaction-Diffusion, this study uses inhibitors, modelling and developmental dynamics to define the FGF-Hh-Wnt-BMP network driving striped rugal patterning in the oral palate.

Summary: Vps13, a protein linked to membrane contact sites and lipid transfer, is required for the timely removal of bulky cell remnants after programmed cell death during Drosophila late oogenesis.

Summary: The axon repellent Slit is proteolytically cleaved by Tok and the resulting Slit-N fragment promotes longitudinal axon growth, not repulsion, in vivo.

Highlighted Article: Fetal gut elongation is crucial for proper postnatal nutrient absorption. Wnt5a, Ryk and Ror2 mouse mutants reveal that WNT5A receptors are important for rapid gut elongation.

Summary: Understanding the roles of ER chaperones in cell biology is of great interest. This Research article shows that ENPL-1 promotes insulin secretion in Caenorhabditis elegans via regulation of proinsulin processing.

Summary: Disrupting a subset of histidine kinase (HK) genes in Oryza sativa reveals that HK5 and HK6 act as cytokinin receptors with overlapping functions to regulate diverse aspects of rice growth and development.

Summary: Control of axon outgrowth and guidance by balancing expression of L1 cell adhesion molecules might be used in vertebrates to control brain development.

Summary: A combination of classic physiology and modern molecular techniques revealed that insulin/IGF signaling and TORC1 activate juvenile hormone production, and thus juvenile hormone signaling promotes vitellogenesis in the American cockroach.

Highlighted Article: The NS1 homeodomain transcription factor regulates lateral organ outgrowth from shoot meristems and leaf primordial margins by repressing the expression of negative growth regulators.

Summary: Mutagenic analyses reveal that seipin plays a crucial role in permeability barrier synthesis during embryogenesis in Caenorhabditis elegans, and loss of seipin results in osmotically sensitive and dysfunctional embryos.