Issues

Summary: Bill Harris, winner of the BSDB's Waddington medal, talks about his early career transition from behaviour to neurodevelopment, the modelling that helped him understand the retina and his biology-inspired art.

Summary: This Review summarizes the main functions of microRNAs in several aspects of neural development, including neurogenesis, migration, axon and dendrite development, and synaptic plasticity.

Summary: This Review summarises what is known regarding the emergence of the human haematopoietic system in vivo, and applies this knowledge to the generation of bona fide human haematopoietic stem cells in vitro.

Summary: A new method for generating 3D corneal organoids from human pluripotent stem cells provides a detailed spatiotemporal analysis of marker expression and tissue formation during corneal development.

Summary: Bona fide hematopoietic stem cells originate from the aorta – and not the yolk sac, allantois or head – during embryonic development in chick.

Summary: Ectopic expression of the AFF-1, a protein that regulates self-fusion, can rejuvenate the regenerative potential of dendrites following injury in aging C. elegans.

Summary: The Arabidopsis CPC-LIKE MYB family, which regulates root hair cell differentiation, includes highly unstable proteins whose proteolysis might be mediated by the ubiquitin/proteasome-dependent pathway.

Highlighted article: Experiments using chick embryos and computational models reveal the biophysical mechanisms that create the foregut and heart tube in the early embryo.

Highlighted article: Proper organization of the placental labyrinth in mice depends on coordinated inter-endothelial repulsion mediated by the binding of FLRT2 to the UNC5B receptor.

Highlighted article: The nutrient-sensing pathway mTOR and its downstream effectors are required in the first two weeks of life for the morphogenesis, maturation and function of pancreatic islets in mice.

Summary: The matrix protein Tiggrin, which is modulated by cell cycle regulators, inhibits the maturation of plasmatocytes in the Drosophila larval lymph gland through an integrin-independent mechanism.

Summary: A network of VEGF-dependent angiogenic genes is regulated by the transcription factor ERG, which dynamically recruits the co-activator p300 to VEGF-dependent enhancers in endothelial cells in vitro and in vivo.

Summary: Myostatin-like proteins can modulate neuromuscular synapse strength as well as synaptogenesis beyond neuromuscular junctions, highlighting a key role for these proteins in synapse function and neuronal growth.

Summary: PDGF-A and its receptor control Xenopus neural crest migration by promoting EMT and contact inhibition of locomotion, acting via N-cadherin regulation at early stages of development and working as chemoattractant later.

Summary: The endothelial-secreted protein EGFL7 plays a crucial role in placental development in mice, affecting chorionic branching, vascular patterning and fetal growth.

Summary: Altering Hand1 phosphoregulation, and consequently Hand1 dimerization affinities, results in a severe truncation of anterior-proximal limb elements in mice.

Summary: In Drosophila, mito-nuclear incompatibility has severe consequences for oogenesis and embryonic survival, a finding that has broader relevance to human female infertility and mitochondrial replacement therapy.

Summary: NRP1 plays a dual role in retinal ganglion cells and in vascular endothelial cells to organise axons along the optic pathway between the mouse retina and diencephalon.

Summary: Single-cell sequencing combined with a battery of molecular tools reveals novel features of cellular dynamics and differentiation during lacrimal gland development in mice.

Summary: New and optimised ex vivo culture conditions, which involve tissue oxygenation and adenosine deaminase activity in the medium, support growth and proliferation in the Drosophila wing disc.