Issues

Summary: This Spotlight revisits a landmark paper in developmental biology, published 25 years ago, that reported the sex reversal of an XX mouse carrying an Sry transgene.

Summary: This Development at a Glance article summarises mammalian pluripotency both in vivo and in vitro, and highlights recent and future applications of PSCs for basic and translational research.

Summary: This Meeting Review summarises the exciting work that was presented at the Fusion meeting on Adult Neurogenesis, which was held in March 2016 in Cancun, Mexico.

Summary: SUMOylation promotes proliferation of cyst stem cells in the Drosophila testis. The transcription factor Ci is SUMOylated, enhancing Hedgehog pathway activity in these cells.

Highlighted article: In the mouse mammary gland, Blimp1 marks a rare progenitor population, and is required for cell proliferation and polarity as well as efficient milk production.

Summary: In the squamous epithelium of the mouse skin, the transcription factors YAP and TAZ are regulated by integrin-Src signalling, and are required for proliferation of skin stem/progenitor cells.

Summary: Lineage tracing of cardiomyocytes in the zebrafish heart reveal their proliferation dynamics and fate decisions, and distinguish atrial and ventricular morphogenesis at the cellular level.

Summary: The response of planarian neoblasts to DNA damage differs according to their location, with both cell autonomous and non-autonomous mechanisms contributing to these regional differences.

Summary: In the Drosophila intestine, Tankyrase is important for Wingless signaling activation in enterocytes, thus non-autonomously regulating intestinal stem cell proliferation.

Highlighted article: In the mouse spinal cord, single-stranded DNA binding proteins are key cofactors in LIM-containing complexes, recruiting histone-modifying enzymes to promote transcription.

Highlighted article: Elongation of the vertebrate body axis by posterior volumetric growth is linked to increased energy supply and is absent from the externally developing zebrafish embryo.

Highlighted article: Naturally occurring hypoxia and HIF pathway activation at an early stage of chick development is required to produce sufficient cranial neural crest cells through EMT.

Highlighted article: Migrating interneurons reach their targets not only via the well-established caudal route, but also via rostrally directed streams that require the COUP-TF nuclear receptors.

Summary: Wnt signalling and the Six3/6 transcription factors play conserved functions in primary axis patterning in bilateria, controlling aboral/anterior identity in Nematostella.

Summary: In mice, JNK and WNT4 antagonistically regulate E-cadherin expression and oocyte-oocyte adhesion during germline cyst breakdown and primordial follicle formation.

Summary: Setdb1-deficient pro-B cells display derepression of endogenous murine leukemia virus (MLV) elements. This induces the unfolded protein response and apoptosis, blocking B cell development.

Summary: Medaka Pax1 plays a key role in generating the primary pattern for segmentation in the pharyngeal endoderm by regulating the expression of Tbx1 and Fgf3.

Summary: Conditional ablation of Fgfr1 and Fgfr2 in the osteoblast lineage in mouse reveals a feed-forward loop controlling FGFR3 signaling in growth plate chondrocytes.

Summary: A new transgenic mouse line allows sebocyte-specific gene targeting and investigation of the importance of sebaceous lipids in the skin and eyelids.