Issues

Summary: This review of a recent EMBO conference draws together emerging themes in regeneration research and highlights the diversity of regeneration strategies in different organ systems and species.

Summary: This Hypothesis article poses that a third state of pluripotency, called formative pluripotency, exists between the naïve and primed states, and is enabling for the execution of pluripotency.

Summary: This Review discusses the factors involved in tooth root development and in human root developmental defects, and highlights the role of stem cells in establishing the crown-to-root transition.

Summary: During mouse neurogenesis, levels of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS) decline during differentiation. Prdm16 and PGC1α are candidate regulators of this metabolic shift.

Summary: In mouse, mutations in different subunits of the PRC2 complex have specific effects on urothelial progenitor cell proliferation and differentiation.

Highlighted article: In the brown alga Ectocarpus, the IMMEDIATE UPRIGHT gene encodes a member of the rapidly evolving EsV-1-7 family that regulates early development in the sporophyte generation.

Highlighted article: Generation of muscle from one specific C. elegans 8-cell stage blastomere requires two cell-cell interactions. Notch-induced zygotic MOM-2 (Wnt) is responsible for both interactions.

Highlighted article: The Nan mouse contains a heterozygous mutation in Eklf/Klf1 that ectopically activates misexpressed genes, leading to intrinsic erythroid and systemic developmental deficits.

Summary: Germ cell-specific ablation of the sirtuin Sirt1 causes infertility, due to disruption of the autophagy pathway and consequent defects in acrosome biogenesis.

Summary: MAPK-mediated phosphorylation and degradation of CPEB1 triggers meiotic cell cycle-coupled translation of dormant maternal mRNAs during oocyte maturation and maternal-zygotic transition.

Summary: Lineage tracing approaches in zebrafish reveal that intestinal smooth muscle originates from the lateral plate mesoderm. Migration and differentiation of these cells involves TGFβ signaling.

Summary: Grafting experiments in chick wing buds show that autopod fate is intrinsically defined, while early but not late autopod cells can adopt host proliferation rates when transplanted into the zeugopod.

Summary: Genetic epistasis, protein localization and FRET assays reveal the functional organization of the Abl signaling network - a highly conserved and ubiquitous system that controls cell morphology and motility.

Summary: In Arabidopsis, a pyridine-thiazole derivative, bubblin, disrupts polarity in stomatal stem cells, resulting in ectopic retention of the key transcription factor SPEECHLESS and stomatal mispatterning.

Summary: VEGFD has been considered dispensable for vascular development in vertebrates. Its mutation reveals that Vegfd plays context-specific and compensatory roles during both angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis.

Summary: A mouse model allowing mosaic expression of wild-type or mutant histone H3.3 variants provides insights into the function of specific histone residues during oogenesis and early development.