Issues

Summary: How much evolutionary change in development do we expect? This Spotlight argues that developmental biologists are in a prime position to provide informed null hypotheses for evolutionary change.

Summary: Focussing on recent microscopy-based studies, this Review discusses current understanding of the regulation of Yorkie, YAP and TAZ, which are key transcriptional regulators that act downstream of the Hippo pathway to control cell fate and organ size.

Highlighted Article: The transcription-factor Runx1 orchestrates the injury response of many cardiac cell types, balancing collagen and fibrin deposition and clearance, as well as affecting myocyte proliferation and survival in zebrafish.

Summary: Single cyst-resolution, genome-wide transcriptional profile analysis of Drosophila testes has offered an unprecedented data resource at each crucial stage of differentiation in an adult stem cell system under physiological conditions.

Highlighted Article: mRBPome capture reveals that the RNA-binding protein TRIM71 is expressed by mouse undifferentiated spermatogonial, and conditional knockout of Trim71 uncovers a key role in regulation of spermatogonial differentiation.

Highlighted Article: Sexual reproduction in flowering plants depends on pollen tube growth and chemotropism to deliver sperm to ovules. The protein DGK4 senses the hormone nitric oxide to regulate these processes.

Summary: Loss of the carboxypeptidase AMP1 does not interfere with the function of miR156 or miR159, suggesting that AMP1 is not universally required for miRNA-mediated translational repression in Arabidopsis.

Highlighted Article: Tbx16 and Tbxta activate myf5 and myod directly during the earliest myogenesis in zebrafish, and Fgf signalling acts through Tbx16 to drive myogenesis in trunk but not tail.

Summary: Reactive oxygen species (ROS) act as developmental signals to drive initiation of root hairs, and the amount and position of ROS accumulation is defined by tissue-specific synthesis of flavonol antioxidants.

Summary: Mis12 is required for G2/M transition by regulating cyclin B1 accumulation via Cdc14B-mediated APC/C^Cdh1 regulation, but is not essential for spindle and chromosome dynamics during meiotic maturation.

Summary: Genetic disruption of TGFβ/BMP signaling in maturing basal vomeronasal sensory neurons (VSNs) or in all mature VSNs indicates that Smad4 signaling drives maturation and connectivity of basal VSNs.

Highlighted Article: Alary muscles and thoracic alary muscles represent a novel type of highly deformable striated muscles that position the circulatory, respiratory and visceral systems in the Drosophila larva.

Summary: This study reveals that kinesin-1 plays a key role in the endocannabinoid signaling that regulates activity at the axonal growth cones of cortical neurons for actin remodeling, axonal pathfinding and brain wiring.

Highlighted Article: Vascular tissues are the first to form in the plant embryo. Using a yeast one hybrid assay, we identify that GBF2 acts as a vascular gene expression modulator, via interactions with auxin response factors.

Highlighted Article: In adult neurogenesis, PBX1 acts as terminal selector for dopaminergic neuron fate in addition to its known pro-neurogenic role in progenitors. Alternative splicing is important to confer functional diversity to PBX1.

Summary: bmo-miR-2739 and novel-miR-167 are coordinately involved in regulating the stage- and tissue-specific expression of BmVgR protein to enable accumulation of yolk protein in oocytes during vitellogenesis.

Highlighted Article: A dorsal-ventral gradient of Wnt3a distinguishes embryonic dorsal and ventral hindgut domains, and regulates the growth necessary for proper colon formation.

Summary: A dot-stripe Turing mechanism can reproduce a wide diversity of joint patterns observed in the tetrapod lineage, providing a unifying framework to interrogate joint patterning in the tetrapod limb.