Issues

Summary: This Spotlight discusses how fossils, as our only direct evidence for plant form in the past, preserve essential lines of evidence for reconstructing the evolution of plant development.

Summary: Species loss is occurring at unprecedented speed, outpacing traditional conservation measures. This Spotlight explores the potential for stem cell technologies to support genetic rescue and conservation.

Summary: At the ‘Unconventional and Emerging Experimental Organisms for Cell and Developmental Biology’ meeting in September 2023, biologists discussed real-time environmental crises, emphasizing the need for broader taxon sampling and novel experimental models to understand planetary health, evolutionary innovation, robustness and biological diversity.

Summary: This Hypothesis reviews evidence supporting the concept that meiosis opposes aging via various mechanisms for cells to regain totipotency and start a new life cycle.

Summary: This Review highlights the molecular mechanisms and species-specific adaptations in stomatal development in response to key stressors of climate change.

Summary: This Review examines how developmental system drift, or divergence in the genetic underpinnings of conserved traits, can be studied to inform comparative developmental biology.

Summary: This Review highlights the role of assessment role in the expression and evolution of phenotypic plasticity, presents two different models for how assessment proceeds, and discusses considerations of these issues for empirical work.

Summary: Extreme traits in animals, from the origin of limbs to the loss of tails, capture public attention. This Review argues that scientists should not seek simple explanations for how they evolved.

Summary: This Review explores recent advances in brown algae developmental biology, examining the mechanisms underlying complex multicellularity in these organisms and highlighting key questions related to this evolutionary transition.

Summary: Tracking different cell populations in Platynereis dumerilii reveals that regeneration is partly promoted by a population of proliferative gut cells whose regenerative potential varies according to their antero-posterior position.

Summary: Microtubule severing by KATANIN controls the number, arrangement and function of microtubule organising centres – including liverwort-specific polar organisers – in Marchantia cells.

Summary: Genomic analysis of a diverse species flock of Dolly Varden charr (Salvelinus malma) reveals common genetic basis for exceptional morphological variation.

Summary: An unusual renal cell type underpinning the water-conservation mechanism of a major beetle lineage is derived from an ancestrally present cell type and specified by a conserved transcription factor repertoire.

Summary: Analysis of a new single-cell transcriptomic atlas of sea urchin development reveals the rapid evolution of larval cell-type trajectories and provides a candidate list of regulators for adult rudiment development.

Summary: Ionocyte progenitors invade lateral line sensory organs in response to low medium salinity or pH, which are environmental changes that trigger the Notch signaling pathway and orchestrate this physiological adaptation.

Summary: A study of auxin responses in the fern Ceratopteris reveal that developmental phase tissue ontogeny, rather than species phylogeny, is a major driver for divergence in the auxin response in land plants.

Summary: BdMUTE has a dual role in non-cell-autonomously recruiting subsidiary cells and cell-autonomously orienting guard cell division orientation in Brachypodium distachyon.

Summary: TEAD4, a master regulator of trophectoderm differentiation in mice, was found to be dispensable for trophectoderm development in bovine and rabbit.

Summary: A global quantitative study of brown algal embryogenesis highlights the role of MUM, an unknown maternal message, in the control of growth axes and tissue patterning in kelp embryos.

Summary: Two types of RhoGAPs, REN and ROPGAP, regulate various aspects of gametophyte development in Marchantia, most likely by controlling the ROP cycling process.

Summary: Cis-regulatory changes were identified that might explain the difference in regulation of Mymk and myoblast fusion between tunicates and vertebrates.

Summary: Changes in cis-regulatory sequences drive cavefish early developmental evolution, and the rx3 transcription factor is a strong candidate gene involved in the evolution of cavefish eyes.

Summary: Vertebrate calcitonin-producing neuroendocrine cells derive from endoderm, not from neural crest as previously thought, and evolved from an ancient pharyngeal cell type of invertebrate chordates.

Summary: Microtubules and actin filament dynamics are required for the basal movement of the nucleus which establishes cell asymmetry before cell division in the Marchantia spore.

Summary: Identification of neurons derived from the poorly understood neck region in Ciona that survive the near-complete overhaul of the body plan (metamorphosis) that non-vertebrate tunicate species undergo as part of their normal life cycle.

Summary: Feeding and starvation in sea anemones induce growth and shrinkage, cell size changes and dynamic cell proliferation changes that support a nutritional, TOR-dependent control of organismal size and cell cycle progression.

Summary: E93 promotes ovarian follicle development during previtellogenesis in ametabolous hemimetabolous insects, guarantees ovarian maturation during vitellogenesis and promotes the vitellogenesis-previtellogenesis switch in fat body of hemimetabolous insects.

Summary: The use of sea star embryogenesis as a model of a proliferating epithelium to highlight how cell division induces 3D cell rearrangements during development.

Summary: The long-term maintenance of spermatozoa vitality during ovarian storage in black rockfish relies on the interplay and mutual adaptation between spermatozoa and the ovary.

Summary: Investigation of genetic and molecular interactions between U and V sex chromosomes implicate OUROBOROS and histone H3K79me2 in developmental regulation of sex chromosome genes in different stages of the Ectocarpus life cycle.

Summary: The Japanese rhinoceros beetle's horn, with suspension-like ridges and four sharp tips, is formed by a mechanical process similar to erecting a tent, using epithelial cell sheets.

Summary: New genomic resources using ATAC-seq reveal the dynamics of gene regulation during embryogenesis of the mayfly Cloeon dipterum, offering insights into insect development and evolution.

Summary: VitelloTag, a method for transporting protein cargo into oocytes, facilitates microinjection-free CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in multiple species.

Summary: The creation of the first germline transgenic sea urchin is expected to significantly improve the utility, reproducibility, and efficiency of sea urchin research.

Summary: A combination of topological analysis and quantitative morphometrics of 3D digital ovules at cellular resolution reveals shape-relevant diversity in 3D cellular architecture between ovules of Cardamine hirsuta and Arabidopsis thaliana.

Summary: Single-cell transcriptome sequencing uncovers the dynamic cellular transcriptional atlas of adult teleost testes development throughout the annual reproductive cycle