Issues

Summary: This Spotlight evaluates models of age reprogramming in light of recent studies that have provided molecular insights into the concept of age reprogramming.

Summary: This Hypothesis argues that the process of tissue regeneration is conducive to transposable element activities that, if left uncontrolled, create an insurmountable barrier to tissue repair.

Summary: We review the roles of osteoprogenitor cells, suture-derived stem cells and signaling pathways that control skull development and homeostasis in normal development and disease states.

Summary: Exploiting the X-linked reporters of the Xmas mESC system to improve female mESC culture facilitates the study of karyotypically correct cells and thus female pluripotency.

Highlighted Article: This study demonstrates the feasibility of chimeric gastruloids for the analyses of cell-intrinsic and cell non-autonomous gene functions, exemplified for the Tbx factors Eomes and brachyury.

Summary: CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing reveals a coordinating-cis-regulatory module that regulates tandem paralog genes during posterior fate determination in female Drosophila ovaries.

Summary: Evidence for a previously unreported role for a cell-adhesion receptor in regulating neuronal migration in mice by suppressing attraction for a secreted protein.

Summary: Microtubule network reorganization, mediated by moving Patronin platforms and EB1-dependent microtubule growth, tunes cell and tissue contractility by modulating actomyosin dynamics through the spatiotemporal regulation of RhoGTPase activity.

Highlighted Article: Computational modelling reveals the likely complementary roles of auxin and auxin signalling in one of the earliest steps in the formation of plant lateral roots, prebranch site formation.

Summary: In C. elegans, erm-1 mRNA localization to plasma membranes requires the ERM-1 membrane-binding domain.

Summary: ‘Illuminati’ is a type of functional instability, caused by epigenetic mechanisms, that occurs most frequently in larval neuroblasts and is enhanced in a neuroblast-derived tumor in Drosophila.

Summary: The ROP interactors ICR2 and ICR5 are microtubule-associated proteins that have unique and redundant functions in secondary wall patterning in the xylem and root hair polar growth.

Summary: ID1 is a key coordinator of epidermal development, acting to balance progenitor proliferation with differentiation. A functional crosstalk between CEBPA and Id1 orchestrates epidermal lineage progression.

Summary: Ectodermal, mesodermal and endodermal tissues in ascidian embryos control the cell cycle through Cdkn1 and Myc, which are under control of transcription factors that specify cell fate.

Summary: Mahjong, an E3 ligase substrate receptor, functions in cell competition through its E3 ligase activity and is independent of its binding partner and apicobasal polarity regulator lethal giant larvae (Lgl).

Summary: Parent-of-origin transcriptomes from hybrid Arabidopsis zygotes are more complex than previously reported and do not accurately reflect maternal effects seen in early isogenic embryos.

Summary: RNAi reveals that fly GSK3β kinase acts synergistically with Par-1 kinase to promote dendrite pruning via microtubule disassembly during Drosophila metamorphosis.

Summary: Apoplastic movement between the tapetum and middle layer of the developing Arabidopsis anther is gated by a previously uncharacterised apoplastic barrier, the peritapetal strip.

Highlighted Article: Live-imaging and intestine-specific protein depletion in Caenorhabditis elegans reveal that apico-basolateral polarity establishment can be temporally and genetically separated locally, across individual cells, and globally, across a tissue.

Summary:Wnt5a-overexpressing mice reveal for the first time that that Wnt5a can function as an orienting cue to polarize mouse skin.

Highlighted Article: Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis of early sea star development contrasts the results of primordial germ cell specification in the sea urchin, and enables deeper comparative studies in tractable developmental models.

Summary: Here, we report robust and reliable tools to model mammalian meiotic initiation in vitro and isolate pure populations of millions of cells undergoing the mitosis-to-meiosis transition for biochemical assays.