Issues

Summary: This Development at a Glance article provides an overview of pioneer transcription factors including their role in lineage specification in vivo, and how they can be used to manipulate cell fate in vitro.

Summary: This Primer outlines the discovery, roles and regulation of circular RNAs, focussing on their potential functions during development.

Summary: This Review discusses how the complex interplay of intrinsic programs and external cues shapes the form and function of root hair cells in plants.

Highlighted article: Inhibition of mTor signaling in vivo prevents the proliferation of Müller glia cells and blocks the regenerative response in the chick retina.

Highlighted article: Induced activation of atoh7 in Müller glia cells in vivo is sufficient to drive cell cycle re-entry and proliferation, followed by the formation of neurogenic clusters and de novo neurogenesis.

Summary: A microfluidic device mimics the spatial and temporal environment of neural tube development in vivo and enables the correct spatial organization of neural tube formation from stem cells in vitro.

Summary: ChIP-seq in undifferentiated mouse spermatogonia identifies both unique and overlapping targets of PLZF and SALL4, and reveals preferential binding to gene promoters and introns, respectively.

Summary: 2-O-sulfated proteoglycans are essential for cranial motor neuron migration, whereas 6-O-sulfated proteoglycans regulate cranial axon guidance.

Highlighted article: Dual ChIP-seq and RNA-seq in vivo experiments show that the context-specific events that occur subsequent to β-catenin binding enable gene-specific regulation, rather than β-catenin recruitment per se.

Highlighted article: In vivo detection of cAMP and PKA levels in real time reveals that Xenopus oocyte meiotic arrest following progesterone release occurs without any reduction in cAMP levels or PKA activity.

Summary: Depletion of Snf2h induces premature and expanded differentiation of lens precursor cells and reveals the role of Snf2h in lens morphogenesis and denucleation of lens fibers.

Summary: The ZIP transporter Fear-of-intimacy controls intracellular zinc availability and is indispensable for the function of zinc-finger transcription factors involved in muscle specification and differentiation.

Summary: Epithelial BMP-Smad1/5 signaling and associated endothelial cells are required for reorganization of the thyroid progenitor cell mass into mature follicles via the assembly of a basement membrane.

Summary: Cerebellar deletion of Ezh2 leads to increased GABAergic interneurons, decreased Purkinje cells and blocked proliferation of granule precursor cells derived from the rhombic lip.

Summary: Mitochondrial biogenesis and ATP production are required for axonal growth and neuronal development in cultured rat cortical neurons.

Summary: Generation of a new targeted Ctnnb1 allele shows that maternal/zygotic Ctnnb1 null embryos cannot complete preimplantation development due to defective blastomere adhesion.

Summary: Genetic and chemical inhibitor analyses in zebrafish show that Bmp signaling to the endoderm is required for proper endoderm morphogenesis and subsequent craniofacial development.

Summary: Time-lapse imaging, cell ablation and MSD plot analysis reveal relative random, directed or confined displacement of differentiating epithelial cells during taste bud development in zebrafish.

Summary: Maximal mutagenesis efficiency is achieved in vivo in zebrafish embryos using salt-solubilized, fluorescently labelled Cas9-sgRNA complexes.