Issues

Summary: This Primer provides an overview of molecular and cellular mechanisms of oxygen sensing and hypoxia signaling, and summarizes loss-of-function phenotypes in development, highlighting clinical relevance by focusing on angiogenesis and tissue ischemia.

Summary: This Review summarises recent research revealing that primordial germ cell (PGC) development depends on interactions with the surrounding somatic cells and tissues, and that this co-development is crucial for PGC specification, migration and maturation.

Summary: This study identifies early stages in the formation of synapses between the neurons of the human retina and demonstrates a recapitulation of this process in human stem cell-derived retinal organoids.

Highlighted Article: We report the derivation of similar, stable and continuously expandable pluripotent stem cells related to embryonic disc epiblast from embryos of pig, sheep and cow.

Highlighted Article: A gain-of-function point mutation in mouse PDGFRβ causes osteopenia associated with intrinsic changes in skeletal stem cells that promote chondrogenesis over osteogenesis.

Summary: Using targeted DamID (TaDa) to reveal Alk targets in the Drosophila visceral mesoderm identified the Kahuli (Kah) transcription factor, which plays a role in the regulation of embryonic midgut morphogenesis.

Summary: Genetic dissection of the mouse brachyury locus identifies a notochord enhancer and predicts additional control elements essential for trunk and tail development of the mouse embryo.

Summary: Analysis of Cfap91 knockout mice reveals that CFAP61 is required for the correct assembly of radial spoke components in spermatids and for axoneme stability, and is therefore crucial for spermatogenesis.

Highlighted Article: The transcriptional targets of SMAD4 in early limb buds are identified and the largely opposing impact of BMP and SHH signaling on early digit patterning and outgrowth is revealed.

Highlighted Article: Neural crest directional and normal migration in vivo requires both chemical and mechanical regulation of Rac1 by Semaphorin 3A and Piezo1, respectively.

Highlighted Article: A new comparative system for understanding branching morphogenesis is provided in the Cladonema pacificum medusa tentacle formation, showing its uniqueness and shared features with others.

Summary: Super-resolution imaging, transmission electron microscopy and genome editing in the developing nematode C. elegans build a high-resolution and dynamic localization map of known and new intestinal brush border markers.

Summary: A toolset enabling combined imaging of suberin and lignin, two cell wall polymers controlling molecular exchange between plant root and rhizosphere, is described and demonstrated to be robust across plant lineages.

Summary: An integrated molecular analysis in zebrafish identifies new molecular markers for pericytes.

Summary: Tissue morphogenesis is driven by multiple mechanisms: this paper proposes a methodology to identify regions in the developing tissue, where each of the regions has distinctive cellular dynamics and deformation.