Issues

Summary: A recent EMBO Workshop highlighted the latest advances in our understanding of spinal cord development and regeneration, and the techniques used to study it.

Summary: This Review article discusses how signaling molecules, mechanical signals and morphological cell features are integrated to regulate chondrogenesis and bone development.

Highlighted article: The cytokinesis protein Anillin regulates asymmetric cell division in the zebrafish retina, promoting progenitor renewal and influencing retinal ganglion cell differentiation.

Highlighted article: Brain lesion in mice reveals a latent neurogenic potential in striatal astrocytes, which can proliferate and generate new neuroblasts.

Highlighted article: Multiplex gene expression analysis on single cardiac lineage cells provides a high-resolution view of cardiac fate choice in the mouse embryo and during stem cell differentiation.

Summary: Inactivation of the Bicc1 gene, which is associated with kidney displasia in humans, causes pancreatic endocrine differentiation defects leading to cyst formation.

Summary: Mice with conditional depletion of the transcription factor Hnf1b, whose mutation is associated with maturity-onset diabetes of the young in humans, show multiple defects in pancreas development.

Summary: In the Drosophila ovary, terminal filament cell development is regulated by activin, which, along with the hormone ecdysone, controls expression of the key transcription factor Broad-Z1.

Summary: LBH acts as a transcription cofactor in basal mammary stem cells, inducing expression of ΔNp63 to promote the multipotent state and repress luminal differentiation.

Highlighted article: Degradation dynamics of the auxin-responsive inhibitor IAA14 act as a tunable timer, controlling both the density and timing of lateral root emergence in Arabidopsis.

Highlighted article: During zygotic gene activation in the early mouse embryo, promoter-associated noncoding RNAs can promote expression of their partner mRNAs, which may be important for normal development.

Summary: In the manchette, a structure at the base of the elongating spermatid, the proteins MEIG1 and PACRG act in a complex to control cargo transport and direct formation of the flagellum.

Summary: Costal 2 must bind Fused for efficient Ci-155 processing and for Fused activation in response to Hedgehog but mapped Fused phosphorylation sites on Costal 2 are dispensable.

Summary: In sea urchin embryos, the TGFß ligand Univin regulates skeletal patterning, signaling from the overlying ectoderm to direct development specifically of the anterior skeleton.

Summary: The neurogenic ciliated band of the sea urchin embryo can be divided into four domains, whose boundaries are defined by a network of transcriptional repressors.

Summary: During Chlamydomonas fertilization, membrane localization and activity of the evolutionarily ancient HAP2 protein depends on cytoplasmic motifs; the ectodomain can not function autonomously.

Summary: During optic cup morphogenesis, Wnt ligands expressed in the surface ectoderm control cell proliferation in the retinal pigmented epithelium, and thus influence bending of the neural retina.

Summary: Lysyl oxidase, an enzyme that regulates extracellular matrix organization, attenuates TGFß signaling to control the balance of myofibres and connective tissue in muscle.

Summary: dCryAB, a heat shock protein, displays stress-independent expression in Drosophila muscles and interacts with the actin crosslinker filamin to ensure proper muscle cytoarchitecture.

Summary: A Drosophila basic helix-loop-helix protein, Extramacrochaetae, influences dorsal-ventral patterning in the eye imaginal disc and regulates expression of the polarity protein four-jointed.

Summary: Bright-field imaging of unstained specimens during selective plane illumination microscopy can provide in vivo tomographic reconstruction of zebrafish anatomy.