Issues
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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: Newly differentiated fat bodies (green) with numerous lipid droplets (magenta; Nile Red) in the abdomen of a pharate adult fly (70-75 h after puparium formation at 25°C) labelled using a combination of a known fat body Gal4 driver and a novel Gal80 strain that efficiently labels tissues with a sheet-like architecture. Note that some axons are non-specifically labelled. See Research article by Tsuyama et al. (dev200815).
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RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
OBITUARY
INTERVIEW
SPOTLIGHT
The brain on time: links between development and neurodegeneration
Summary: This Spotlight proposes that genetic forms of neurodegeneration might be rooted in neural development, and that understanding the temporal mechanisms of brain development may help to uncover the etiology and pathophysiology of human neurodegenerative diseases.
REVIEW
Human embryo implantation
Summary: This Review examines the foundational processes of pregnancy from an evolutionary perspective, highlights uterine remodelling permissive for implantation, and examines the impact of embryo fitness on endometrial homeostasis.
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Evidence implicating sequential commitment of the founder lineages in the human blastocyst by order of hypoblast gene activation
Summary: Optimal segregation of human blastocyst founder lineages is essential to establish healthy human pregnancies. Mapping the activation of hypoblast marker genes over time helps to understand how the yolk sac is regulated.
STEM CELLS AND REGENERATION
Efficient and rapid fluorescent protein knock-in with universal donors in mouse embryonic stem cells
Summary: A streamlined approach for fluorescent protein knock-in in mouse embryonic stem cells that allows rapid tagging of endogenous genes for live imaging less than 2 weeks post-transfection.
BMP4 triggers regulatory circuits specifying the cardiac mesoderm lineage
Summary: Bmp4 induces cardiac mesoderm formation in mESCs, whereby Bmp4 activates Nodal and Wnt3, and all three signaling pathways cooperate in activating mesodermal enhancers and cardiac progenitor genes.
Progenitor-derived glia are required for spinal cord regeneration in zebrafish
Summary: Lineage tracing, regulatory sequence analysis and inducible cell ablation determine the contribution, molecular regulation, and requirement of bridging glia for innate neural repair during spinal cord regeneration in adult zebrafish.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Distinct hyperactive RAS/MAPK alleles converge on common GABAergic interneuron core programs
Summary: Hyperactivation of the RAS/MAPK pathway in mouse via two different mechanisms reveals that distinct RAS/MAPK genes influence the molecular and cellular properties of GABAergic interneurons, suggesting common alterations that may be relevant to the large family of RAS/MAPK syndromes.
The impact of cell size on morphogen gradient precision
Highlighted Article: Small cross-sectional cell areas in developing epithelial tissues lead to higher patterning precision, which may explain the emergence of pseudostratification in epithelia.
The exon junction complex component EIF4A3 is essential for mouse and human cortical progenitor mitosis and neurogenesis
Highlighted Article: The RNA helicase EIF4A3 mediates neurogenesis by controlling the duration of mitosis in both mouse and human neural progenitors, indicating new mechanisms that underlie neurodevelopmental disorders.
Esrrγa regulates nephron and ciliary development by controlling prostaglandin synthesis
Summary: Understanding of ciliopathy disorders has been advanced by the discovery that the orphan nuclear receptor Esrrγa regulates kidney organogenesis and ciliary development in zebrafish and the mouse.
Cell-intrinsic and -extrinsic roles of the ESCRT-III subunit Shrub in abscission of Drosophila sensory organ precursors
Highlighted Article: ESCRT-III Shrub/CHMP4 exerts two complementary functions during asymmetric division of sensory organ precursors, to coordinate the maintenance of junctional integrity with abscission.
Scleraxis-lineage cells are required for correct muscle patterning
Summary: Targeted ablation of Scx-lineage cells in mouse embryos alters muscle shape and attachment site, indicating that the muscle patterning is regulated by this cell population.
Voltage-gated sodium channel activity mediates sea urchin larval skeletal patterning through spatial regulation of Wnt5 expression
Summary: Inhibition of voltage-gated sodium channels perturbs Wnt5-mediated patterning of the sea urchin larval skeleton.
Interplay of spermatogonial subpopulations during initial stages of spermatogenesis in adult primates
Summary: This paper proposes a novel model for the relationship among the heterogeneous spermatogonial subsets in primates, based on their proliferative status and expression of selected protein markers.
Shared retinoic acid responsive enhancers coordinately regulate nascent transcription of Hoxb coding and non-coding RNAs in the developing mouse neural tube
Highlighted Article: Rapid and dynamic enhancer-promoter interactions in the Hoxb cluster potentiate transcription of individual genes through combined inputs from shared enhancers in coordinating the response to retinoic acid.
Female reproductive dormancy in Drosophila is regulated by DH31-producing neurons projecting into the corpus allatum
Highlighted Article: Diuretic hormone 31-producing neurons, projecting to the corpus allatum, are essential for female reproductive dormancy through the suppression of juvenile hormone in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.
NHR-23 activity is necessary for C. elegans developmental progression and apical extracellular matrix structure and function
Summary: Activity of NHR-23, a C. elegans transcription factor, is necessary in seam and hypodermal cells to promote molting and timely development.
Regulation of anterior neurectoderm specification and differentiation by BMP signaling in ascidians
Summary: BMP signaling regulates two steps of ascidian palp formation: presumptive territory specification at the anterior neural plate border during gastrulation, and ventral palp versus inter-palp segregation during neurulation.
CHIP inhibits odontoblast differentiation through promoting DLX3 polyubiquitylation and degradation
Summary: CHIP, an E3 ubiquitin ligase, is expressed during tooth development. It inhibits odontoblast differentiation and dentin formation by competing with MDM2 in interacting with and ubiquitylating DLX3. Against means CHIP competes with Mdm2 in interacting with and ubiquitylating DLX3, thus inhibits odontoblast differentiation and dentin formation.
Dynamic de novo adipose tissue development during metamorphosis in Drosophila melanogaster
Summary: Drosophila adult fat body precursor cells form adult adipose tissue during metamorphosis by directional migration, continuous cell proliferation and homotypic cell fusion.
Mesodermal FGF and BMP govern the sequential stages of zebrafish thyroid specification
Summary: Specification of the early thyroid anlage involves a Pax2a-expressing thyroid progenitor cell population that is subject to sequential induction of Pax2a and Nkx2.4b, mediated by differential FGF- and BMP-dependent patterning processes.
Call for papers: Uncovering Developmental Diversity
Development invites you to submit your latest research to our upcoming special issue: Uncovering Developmental Diversity. This issue will be coordinated by our academic Editor Cassandra Extavour (Harvard University, USA) alongside two Guest Editors: Liam Dolan (Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, Austria) and Karen Sears (University of California Los Angeles, USA).
Choose Development in 2024
In this Editorial, Development Editor-in-Chief James Briscoe and Executive Editor Katherine Brown explain how you support your community by publishing in Development and how the journal champions serious science, community connections and progressive publishing.
Journal Meeting: From Stem Cells to Human Development
Register now for the 2024 Development Journal Meeting From Stem Cells to Human Development. Early-bird registration deadline: 3 May. Abstract submission deadline: 21 June.
Pluripotency of a founding field: rebranding developmental biology
This collaborative Perspective, the result of a workshop held in 2023, proposes a set of community actions to increase the visibility of the developmental biology field. The authors make recommendations for new funding streams, frameworks for collaborations and mechanisms by which members of the community can promote themselves and their research.
Read & Publish Open Access publishing: what authors say
We have had great feedback from authors who have benefitted from our Read & Publish agreement with their institution and have been able to publish Open Access with us without paying an APC. Read what they had to say.