Issues

Summary: We talked to Caroline Dean - a plant biologist based at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK - about her career, her FEBS EMBO Women in Science Award, and her thoughts on the plant field.

Summary: This Meeting Review summarises the work and advances presented at the recent EMBO Workshop on Embryonic-Extraembryonic Interfaces

Summary: In this Hypothesis article, Johnson and Alberio propose that the determinative mechanisms for PGC specification in most model systems evolved to promote speciation and evolvability, not to maintain the germ line.

Highlighted article: The Hippo pathway transcriptional effectors Scalloped and Yorkie are required to drive quiescent cells into the cell cycle in response to tissue damage in the developing Drosophila eye.

Highlighted article: Yap, a Hippo pathway effector, is required to regulate cell proliferation and is regulated by changes in cell density and cell morphology to control fin regeneration.

Summary: Thyroid hormones and the TRα1 nuclear receptor regulate Notch signaling and hence the balance between cell proliferation and cell differentiation in intestinal cells.

Summary: The MADS box transcription factor MEF2C is identified as an immediate downstream target of endothelin and is part of a positive-feedback mechanism for endothelin induction in the neural crest.

Highlighted article: Fat1-Fat4 dimer formation is proposed to bring together diverse proteins at apical junctions to regulate both apical constriction and progenitor cell divisions in the neural tube.

Summary: A microarray-based screen identifies Otx2 as a crucial target of N-myc, and further studies show that Otx2 is essential for spatial restriction of the sensory domain in the mammalian cochlea.

Summary: The development of Drosophila ocelli requires dynamic changes in Hh signaling domains that are regulated by the Hh signaling target engrailed and the Drosophila Six3/6 homolog Optix.

Summary: The transcription factor Neurog1 may in part mimic Atoh1 activity, which is essential for hair fate determination, but cannot fully regulate stereocilia maturation and inner ear patterning.

Summary: Alterations of floral meristem identity gene expression patterns during evolution involve changes in both cis-regulatory elements and upstream trans-acting factors.

Summary: CRISPR-based technology can mediate efficient gene targeting and transgene replacement in the beetle Tribolium, which is emerging as a powerful insect model organism.

Highlighted article: The heterogeneous and fluctuating expression of a Nanog reporter is coupled to various cell- and population-based features in mouse embryonic stem cells.

Summary: A novel transgenic quail that ubiquitously expresses nuclear localized CherryFP provides insights into the cellular and morphogenetic events of amniote embryogenesis.