Issues

Summary: The key molecules responsible for planar cell polarity form bridges that span between neighbouring cells. Gradients across the tissue cause these bridges to be asymmetrically localised within each cell.

Summary: This study identifies a hierarchy of niche signaling that maintains Drosophila follicle stem cells and might be important for a robust, yet dynamic, niche.

Highlighted Article: The Nr5a1 fetal Leydig enhancer is required for the initial dedifferentiation of mouse fetal Leydig cells as well as subsequent redifferentiation to adult Leydig cells in the postnatal testis.

Summary: In Drosophila, neuroblasts and cortex glia use a receptor tyrosine kinase-dependent feed-forward mechanism to actively maintain each other during neurogenesis, which contributes to glial tumorigenesis.

Summary: In Drosophila, Small ovary functions as a key component of heterochromatin to maintain the integrity of the stem cell niche and to regulate transposon silencing.

Summary: Connexin 43 regulates joint location by regulating Smp, and therefore β-catenin, which suppresses the expression of the transcription factor evx1.

Highlighted Article: Histological and molecular approaches reveal that Kmt2b epigenetically primes mouse SSCs to upregulate genes during late spermatogenesis and embryogenesis, and that Kmt2b is required for SSC differentiation.

Summary: Canonical Wnt activation in the mammalian cochlea elicits a unique, age-dependent transcriptional response, which in part regulates the regenerative capacity of supporting cells during cochlear maturation.

Highlighted Article: Notchless regulates crucial steps in ribosome biogenesis, yet its inactivation reveals that it is required for proliferating myogenic cells, but not quiescent and differentiated myogenic cells.

Summary: At least two pathways control centriole positioning in Drosophila wings: one linked to actin polymerization and another controlled by the core Fz-PCP pathway but independent of known PCP effectors.

Highlighted Article: The candidate congenital heart disease gene WDR5 is essential for left-right patterning via its role in ciliogenesis. WDR5, a chromatin modifier, regulates transcription of foxj1 but also has a nonchromatin role at the ciliary base.

Summary: DMP9/DAU2 resident to the sperm cell surface arranges interactions with the egg cell that lead to the success of double fertilization.

Summary: The tongue pathology in mice that lack β-catenin in the Myog-Cre-expressing myoblast population reveals that WNT/β-catenin signaling controls the myoblast fusion process through regulation of the nephrin gene.

Summary: KNAT1-overexpressing Arabidopsis mutants reveal that gibberellin signaling promotes xylem fiber development by preventing DELLA-dependent inhibition of KNAT1 activity.

Summary: We show that SETDB1 plays a crucial role in mouse PGC specification by repressing the transcription factors DPPA2, OTX2 and UTF1 to ensure the expression of BMP4 signaling-related genes.

Summary: Here, we describe how the conserved RhoGAP HUM-7/MYO9 integrates signals from SAX-3/ROBO to regulate cell migrations by attenuating RHO-1 GTPase activity, identifying new roles for RHO-1 during epidermal cell migration.

Highlighted Article: A revised Arabidopsis model suggests that the cop phenotype is due to reduced levels of PIFs, increased levels of positively acting transcription factors and HFR1-mediated inhibition of PIF activity in the dark.

Summary: Blockade of microRNA-mediated suppression of Dishevelled isoforms during sea urchin development induces defects in the gut, spiculogenesis and ciliogenesis.

Summary: C. elegans PTEN and AMPK stop neuroblast divisions during starvation, and in their absence BMP induces insulin signaling, which in turn activates PP2A and MAPK to promote neuroblast divisions.

Summary: Temporal recruitment of Polycomb-group proteins at a target gene as they assume control of transcriptional repression that is initiated by a gene-specific transcription factor.

Summary: This study provides molecular insight into how the two transcription factors TBX2 and TBX3 promote the formation of fully differentiated smooth muscle cells from mesenchymal progenitors in the mouse ureter.

Highlighted Article: Light controls periodic organ formation in Arabidopsis via a hormone-driven molecular oscillator with adjustable frequency.

Summary: Novel initiator caspase sensors reveal previously unknown stages of apoptosis and stereotyped patterns of non-apoptotic caspase activation in physiological conditions.