Issues

Summary: This Spotlight proposes that genetic forms of neurodegeneration might be rooted in neural development, and that understanding the temporal mechanisms of brain development may help to uncover the etiology and pathophysiology of human neurodegenerative diseases.

Summary: This Review examines the foundational processes of pregnancy from an evolutionary perspective, highlights uterine remodelling permissive for implantation, and examines the impact of embryo fitness on endometrial homeostasis.

Summary: Optimal segregation of human blastocyst founder lineages is essential to establish healthy human pregnancies. Mapping the activation of hypoblast marker genes over time helps to understand how the yolk sac is regulated.

Summary: A streamlined approach for fluorescent protein knock-in in mouse embryonic stem cells that allows rapid tagging of endogenous genes for live imaging less than 2 weeks post-transfection.

Summary: Bmp4 induces cardiac mesoderm formation in mESCs, whereby Bmp4 activates Nodal and Wnt3, and all three signaling pathways cooperate in activating mesodermal enhancers and cardiac progenitor genes.

Summary: Lineage tracing, regulatory sequence analysis and inducible cell ablation determine the contribution, molecular regulation, and requirement of bridging glia for innate neural repair during spinal cord regeneration in adult zebrafish.

Summary: Hyperactivation of the RAS/MAPK pathway in mouse via two different mechanisms reveals that distinct RAS/MAPK genes influence the molecular and cellular properties of GABAergic interneurons, suggesting common alterations that may be relevant to the large family of RAS/MAPK syndromes.

Highlighted Article: Small cross-sectional cell areas in developing epithelial tissues lead to higher patterning precision, which may explain the emergence of pseudostratification in epithelia.

Highlighted Article: The RNA helicase EIF4A3 mediates neurogenesis by controlling the duration of mitosis in both mouse and human neural progenitors, indicating new mechanisms that underlie neurodevelopmental disorders.

Summary: Understanding of ciliopathy disorders has been advanced by the discovery that the orphan nuclear receptor Esrrγa regulates kidney organogenesis and ciliary development in zebrafish and the mouse.

Highlighted Article: ESCRT-III Shrub/CHMP4 exerts two complementary functions during asymmetric division of sensory organ precursors, to coordinate the maintenance of junctional integrity with abscission.

Summary: Targeted ablation of Scx-lineage cells in mouse embryos alters muscle shape and attachment site, indicating that the muscle patterning is regulated by this cell population.

Summary: Inhibition of voltage-gated sodium channels perturbs Wnt5-mediated patterning of the sea urchin larval skeleton.

Summary: This paper proposes a novel model for the relationship among the heterogeneous spermatogonial subsets in primates, based on their proliferative status and expression of selected protein markers.

Highlighted Article: Rapid and dynamic enhancer-promoter interactions in the Hoxb cluster potentiate transcription of individual genes through combined inputs from shared enhancers in coordinating the response to retinoic acid.

Highlighted Article: Diuretic hormone 31-producing neurons, projecting to the corpus allatum, are essential for female reproductive dormancy through the suppression of juvenile hormone in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

Summary: Activity of NHR-23, a C. elegans transcription factor, is necessary in seam and hypodermal cells to promote molting and timely development.

Summary: BMP signaling regulates two steps of ascidian palp formation: presumptive territory specification at the anterior neural plate border during gastrulation, and ventral palp versus inter-palp segregation during neurulation.

Summary: CHIP, an E3 ubiquitin ligase, is expressed during tooth development. It inhibits odontoblast differentiation and dentin formation by competing with MDM2 in interacting with and ubiquitylating DLX3. Against means CHIP competes with Mdm2 in interacting with and ubiquitylating DLX3, thus inhibits odontoblast differentiation and dentin formation.

Summary: Drosophila adult fat body precursor cells form adult adipose tissue during metamorphosis by directional migration, continuous cell proliferation and homotypic cell fusion.

Summary: Specification of the early thyroid anlage involves a Pax2a-expressing thyroid progenitor cell population that is subject to sequential induction of Pax2a and Nkx2.4b, mediated by differential FGF- and BMP-dependent patterning processes.