In sea urchin embryos, endomesoderm specification involves β-catenin entry into the nuclei of the vegetal cells of the developing embryo. Now, on p. 3297, David McClay and colleagues reveal how the embryo uses maternal information to initiate this specification by showing that maternal Wnt6 is necessary for activation of endodermal genes. They report that the addition of Wnt6 or ectopic activation of the Wnt pathway rescues endoderm specification in eggs that lack the small region of the vegetal cortex that is normally needed for the activation of the endomesoderm gene regulatory network. This part of the vegetal cortex, they report, contains a high level of Dishevelled (Dsh), a transducer of the canonical Wnt pathway. They also report that morpholino knockdown of Wnt6 in the whole embryos of two sea urchin species prevents endoderm specification but not the expression of mesoderm markers. The researchers suggest, therefore, that maternal Wnt6 plus a localised vegetal cortex molecule, possibly Dsh, are necessary for endoderm specification in sea urchin embryos.
Endoderm specification in sea urchins
Endoderm specification in sea urchins. Development 1 August 2011; 138 (15): e1504. doi:
Download citation file:
Advertisement
Cited by
Call for papers: Uncovering Developmental Diversity
Development invites you to submit your latest research to our upcoming special issue: Uncovering Developmental Diversity. This issue will be coordinated by our academic Editor Cassandra Extavour (Harvard University, USA) alongside two Guest Editors: Liam Dolan (Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, Austria) and Karen Sears (University of California Los Angeles, USA).
Choose Development in 2024
In this Editorial, Development Editor-in-Chief James Briscoe and Executive Editor Katherine Brown explain how you support your community by publishing in Development and how the journal champions serious science, community connections and progressive publishing.
Journal Meeting: From Stem Cells to Human Development
Register now for the 2024 Development Journal Meeting From Stem Cells to Human Development. Early-bird registration deadline: 3 May. Abstract submission deadline: 21 June.
Pluripotency of a founding field: rebranding developmental biology
This collaborative Perspective, the result of a workshop held in 2023, proposes a set of community actions to increase the visibility of the developmental biology field. The authors make recommendations for new funding streams, frameworks for collaborations and mechanisms by which members of the community can promote themselves and their research.
Read & Publish Open Access publishing: what authors say
We have had great feedback from authors who have benefitted from our Read & Publish agreement with their institution and have been able to publish Open Access with us without paying an APC. Read what they had to say.