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Win £200 for your post on the Node

Posted by , on 30 July 2026

Do you have an idea for a post on the Node that you have been postponing writing for a while? Or, perhaps, you have a draft that is waiting to receive your final touches before posting? Good news! This is your opportunity to publish your piece at last for a chance to win £200. For the upcoming month, we are hosting an exciting writing challenge to help battle procrastination and motivate you to share your piece with the Node’s community of developmental and stem cell biologists.

To take part in the challenge, simply post on the Node. The post can be related to current series and themes we have on the Node (or, perhaps, introducing some new exciting topic). All posts* between now and the deadline will automatically enter the pool. Register or log in to share your blog post with the community and enter. If you want to feel inspired, take a look at the amazing entries from our 2025 writing challenge.

The deadline for the challenge is 4 September, after which one winner will be randomly selected for a prize of £200 and an interview with the Node.

*Job or event announcement posts, or posts from the Node team, are not eligible.

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PhD 4-year contract in Barcelona in the field of EvoDevo, Genomics and Bioinformatics

Posted by , on 23 July 2026

Closing Date: 31 December 2026

 

Job offer: PhD contract (4 years)

Cristian Cañestro’s lab offers a fully funded 4-year FPI PhD contract associated with our newly granted project PID2025-170547NB-I00, “Gene loss impact: evolution of cardioparaxial-neuromesodermal development and genome scrambling in Oikopleura dioica as a case study” (OikoLoss).

The PhD will be carried out within the Genetics Doctoral Programme at the University of Barcelona, in the Section of Genetics and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio).

THE CANDIDATES:

We welcome candidates interested in evolutionary developmental biology, genomics, bioinformatics and evolutionary and population genetics.

Applicants must hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees in a field related to Biological Sciences, such as Biology, Genetics or Bioinformatics

THE PROJECT:

OikoLoss investigates how gene loss can drive evolutionary innovation. Using the chordate Oikopleura dioica as a natural “evolutionary knockout” model, the project integrates EvoDevo, functional genomics, single-cell transcriptomics, population genomics and ecology through two complementary aims:

Aim 1. To determine how massive gene loss has reshaped heart, axial muscle and neuromesodermal development in chordates, using single-cell omics, gene-expression analyses and functional experiments.

Aim 2. To uncover how genome scrambling and chromosomal breakpoints generate gene-loss alleles, and to assess their potential adaptive impact to ocean environmental conditions.

THE TECHNIQUES:

The PhD will involve embryo culture and manipulation, microinjection, CRISPR-knockouts, interference-knockdowns, HCR whole-mount in situ hybridization, confocal microscopy, single-cell RNA sequencing, PacBio HiFi long-read genomic sequencing, comparative and population genomics, and bioinformatics.

TRAINING AND COLLABORATIONS:

The successful candidate will join a multidisciplinary research environment and will enjoy opportunities to interact with international partners and undertake research stays, particularly with collaborators at OIST in Okinawa, IGFL in Lyon, SARS in Bergen and CRG in Barcelona.

FUNDING:

The position consists of a fully funded 4-year FPI predoctoral contract associated with the granted PID2025 project. Salary, doctoral fees, mobility support and social-security conditions will follow the official programme and University of Barcelona regulations.

DEADLINES:

Expressions of interest and pre-selection ARE NOW OPEN. Early contact is strongly recommended. The formal application procedure and incorporation date will follow the official FPI and UB timetable.

– The application process is expected to be open in September 2026

– Incorporation is expected at the end of 2026 or 2027.

CONTACT and SELECTION:

Interested candidates should email Cristian Cañestro at canestro@ub.edu, attaching a single PDF containing:

– A motivation letter explaining why they wish to join the laboratory and which project aims interest them most.

– A brief CV, including Bachelor’s and master’s academic transcripts, including average grades.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to an online interview. Selection will follow the UB’s responsible recruitment principles and will be based on academic record, relevant experience and motivation, without discrimination and with attention to gender balance.

Further information, related publications and updates:

https://evodevogenomics-unibarcelona.weebly.com/join-us.html
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Causality and Comparative Genomics/Transcriptomics

Posted by , on 21 July 2026

One limitation of comparative genomics and transcriptomics in understanding the origin of evolutionary novelties is that these approaches typically provide long (or short) lists of genes that differ among the species being compared, but they cannot distinguish causal mechanisms from subsequent adaptive outcomes. The former are most likely involved in the rewiring of gene regulatory networks (GRNs)—a process that does not necessarily require the evolution of new genes, but rather changes in regulatory interactions, including modifications of network connectivity, regulatory inputs, microRNA activity, epigenetic marks, or chromatin remodeling. By contrast, many of the latter changes, although biologically important, may simply reflect adaptation to new lifestyles, ecological conditions, or developmental modes that arose after the novelty itself had originated.


Because we have no direct access to the earliest stages in the evolution of new lineages, it is difficult to determine whether the gain or loss of particular genes played a causal role in the emergence of a novelty. Most extant animal groups diverged from their common ancestors hundreds of millions of years ago and have since experienced long and complex evolutionary histories. During these intervals, lineages presumably adapted to a succession of environments, many of which no longer exist. Such adaptive histories may have favored the expansion of particular gene families, thereby increasing organismal fitness under changing ecological conditions. Consequently, many genomic differences observed among living species may reflect long-term adaptive evolution rather than the mechanisms that originally generated evolutionary innovations.
This highlights an obvious but often overlooked point: we have no direct record of the evolutionary trajectories that produced extant lineages. As a result, it is challenging to identify which genomic changes were instrumental in generating a novelty and which merely contributed to its subsequent refinement and ecological success. Ultimately, only regulatory changes can be considered causal in the origin of developmental novelties, since morphological innovation necessarily arises through modifications in the regulation of development. Investigating regulatory genes, their interactions within GRNs, and the molecular mechanisms that modulate them therefore offers the best opportunity to uncover the causal processes underlying evolutionary innovation.


Once these primary regulatory changes are established, subsequent evolutionary refinements can occur through selection acting on downstream targets, including structural, metabolic, physiological, and additional regulatory genes. These later modifications fine-tune the phenotype and improve its performance in particular ecological contexts, but they should not be conflated with the original causal events that produced the novelty.


The central argument I wish to make, therefore, is that research on evolutionary novelties should place greater emphasis on identifying causal mechanisms by reconstructing how GRNs have been modified over evolutionary time. This requires refocusing our attention on the primary regulatory drivers rather than on the accumulation of downstream genomic differences. Moreover, integrating comparative genomics with evidence from the fossil record and with reconstructions of the ecological histories experienced by different lineages would provide a much richer framework for interpreting differences in gene complements. Such an approach would move comparative studies beyond sequence comparisons alone toward a functional understanding of regulatory genes and their evolutionary roles across the animal tree of life. Although this perspective is necessarily nuanced and difficult to implement, it offers a more promising route toward understanding how evolutionary novelties arise through causal developmental mechanisms.


Though the above doesn’t represent a particularly new idea, it is, in my view, a useful reminder of what we need to focus on in order to understand novelty.


Disclosure: ChatGPT was used solely to improve the language and style of the original text.

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Categories: Discussion, Research, Uncategorized

A day in the life of a sea cucumber lab

Posted by , on 20 July 2026

The adventure of a brave ENGAGE-Bio post-bac scholar at the MBL who set up a new sea cucumber species in the Perillo lab.

Who are we?

Hi, we are a group of scientists who believe establishing new research systems is key to discover new biological features. We work at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole (MA, USA) in the Perillo lab. Talia (now a graduate student at the University of Virginia) was an ENGAGE BIO post-bac scholar who spent a year establishing the sea cucumber Leptosynapta tenuis as a new lab system. 

What are sea cucumbers?

Sea cucumbers are marine invertebrates with amazing abilities: these animals can undergo whole body regeneration, spit out their internal organs if threatened -and completely regenerate them! – change skin strength and elastic stiffness within a timescale of seconds and are rich in novel active bioactive compounds -just to cite a few. 

Almost all species of adult sea cucumbers have dark, thick skin and studying their organs in vivo is a challenge. Moreover, the most common species can only be studied close to their collection site, as these animals do not ship well. However, thanks to the knowledge of the Marine Resource Center at the MBL we have access to a local sea cucumber species that has transparent skin and that we found can be easily kept in any lab. These new species is the sea cucumber L. tenuis, a small and clear sea cucumber from the North Atlantic Ocean (Fig. 1A). They feed in the sand and use their tentacles to quickly dig and hide. Not much is known about the organism in terms of its characteristics and behaviors and we are excited to discover new aspects of their biology every day.  How do they navigate in space inside the sand? How is the nervous system controlling their behaviors? How do they reproduce? How does a hermaphrodite gonad work? How do their larvae develop? These are some of the questions we are investigating in the lab.

Talia worked on some of these questions and had a chance to present her work at the developmental Biology of the Sea Urchin and Other Marine Invertebrates (DBMUMI) conference (Fig. 2A). In 2026 Aly Rodger, new Research Assistant in the lab, took over the sea cucumber project.

Figure 1: A) Leptosynapta tenuis digging in the sand in our lab setup. B) Live imaging of L. tenuis skin stained with a DNA dye.

Talia’s experience working with sea cucumbers

Due to the niche of this animal, I was interested in Margherita’s project to characterize its structures. When we received a collection for the month, we would dissect and image to understand different structures. We can conduct living imaging of their skin because it is transparent (Fig. 1B). Through this, we were able to observe structures on the skin that we could have seen if they had pigment, as most sea cucumbers do. I spent time staining phalloidin and tubulin to understand the morphology of the skin, intestine, tentacles, and the gonads. While imaging new structures, I was amazed by the amount of muscle and neurons that these small sea cucumbers had (Fig. 2B, Talia working). L. tenuis is a hermaphrodite species, how do they develop both testis and ovaries in the same tube? To understand their oocyte growth, I would image them monthly and measure their size to figure out their seasonal patterns and compare it to testis maturation. Being the first to see these structures through fluorescence microscopy only made me question their development more.   

A challenging part of working with these animals is that little is known about their development or their behaviors. Margherita and I spent a lot of time troubleshooting how to house them at the MBL and within our lab. We came up with a water bubbling system to cycle the sand for oxygen flow within their habitat and a sand collection system to ensure their environment has nutrients. Even though trying to understand how to maintain them is difficult, it is exciting to be able to lay the groundwork for a new model system in developmental biology.

Why do we need this for developmental biology? 

Sometimes in research, we cannot answer a question because we don’t have the tools or the right model. But the sea cucumber has the possibility to be used in different fields; it is worth investigating and conducting groundwork research for future research to answer larger questions with this organism. Similarly, groundbreaking science came from taking a chance and investing resources in what are now considered traditional research organisms, such as mice, flies, bacteria, and zebrafish. I believe that many research questions, such as neurodevelopment, axis elongation, and body plan development, could be answered by using L. tenuis.

Figure 2: A) Talia presents her work on sea cucumbers at the international conference for the Developmental Biology of the Sea Urchin and Other Marine Invertebrates in 2025. B) Talia taking pictures of sea cucumber gonads at the confocal microscope.

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Comparative Developmental Biology Course at the MBL, October 2026

Posted by , on 16 July 2026

Comparative Developmental Biology Course at the MBL, October 2026

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Post-doc position on Shh dynamics in limb development at NIH

Posted by , on 16 July 2026

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Limb development as a model for regulation and evolution of vertebrate form:  Fellowship position to investigate dynamics of Shh regulation and function.

Mackem lab is recruiting for NIH-funded post-doc position in developmental morphogenesis to study the roles of Shh in vertebrate limb patterning (different digit types, numbers, adaptations) using molecular-genetic and genomic approaches.  Our long-term goal is understanding how regulatory networks instruct the formation of complex structures with distinct shapes, such as the varying bony segments and joint numbers in different digits, arising from the same tissues and not based in cell fate changes per se.  

Current work focuses on genome-wide approaches to identify key Shh relay signals and their relation to late signaling centers, comparative evolutionary analyses to reveal regulatory mechanisms underlying morphology-based adaptations and combined genetic/genomic strategies to explore the dynamic, robust nature of Shh-producing cells. We recently showed that Shh acts as a trigger, not morphogen, to initiate digit patterning, but the critical targets remain unknown.  We have discovered that the Shh-producing ZPA domain in the limb is not a static population but arises from progenitors at the limb border that contribute to ongoing ZPA renewal and plan to characterize progenitor pool regulation.  We have also found that the widespread phenomenon of autocrine non-responsiveness in Shh-producing cells is an intrinsic feature of these cells, not due to negative-feedback, and are examining its mechanistic basis.       

Applicants should have a strong background in developmental and/or evo-devo biology. Prior experience with cutting-edge genomic approaches is desirable.  For more information, please contact Susan Mackem (mackems@mail.nih.gov) directly.

Recent lab publications:

Huang et al. (2026) Nature Communications.   A pivotal Wnt antagonist role promoting digit joint specification by constraining Wnt activity.  In press May 2026.  doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73549-4

Patel and Mackem (2025) PNAS.  Dual Bmp-negative feedback loops modulate function of both AER and ZPA to buffer and constrain postaxial digit number.  122: e2427249122. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2427249122

Zhu et al. (2022) Dev Cell.  Sonic hedgehog is not a limb morphogen but acts as a trigger to specify all digits in mice. 57: 2048-62.

Trofka et al. (2021) Current Biology. Genetic basis for an evolutionary shift from ancestral preaxial to postaxial limb polarity in non-urodele vertebrates. 31: 4923-34.

Reviews/perspectives:

Huang et al. (2022) Dev. Dynamics. Rethinking positional information and digit identity: The role of late interdigit signaling.   251:1414–1422.

Zhu et al. (2017) Dev. Biology.  John Saunders’ ZPA, Sonic hedgehog and digit identity – How does it really all work?    429:391-400.

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Winners from the 2025 Quintay International Course on Developmental Biology cover competition

Posted by , on 14 July 2026

Last month, the Node ran a cover competition with images taken by advanced graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from across the Americas who gathered in Chile to participate in the International Course on Developmental Biology, an EMBO Practical Course held at the Marine Biology Station of Quintay (CIMARQ).

We held a vote over a two-week period. Nine impressive submissions were received from the 2025 student cohort, with images ranging from amphipods to Xenopus laevis and the winners of the popular vote were chosen. Among the great selection of images, the image taken by Natália Heloísa de Oliveira, Fernanda Salce, and Federica Salatiello, Amphipod, received the most votes. Congratulations! Their image will be published on the front cover of  Development later in the year.

First, we hear from one of the winners, Fernanda Salce.   

Fernanda, can you describe your research career so far?

Currently, I am a PhD student in Brazil at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Macaé, RJ. Specifically, I work at the Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability, affiliated with the Morphological Sciences PhD program.

Can you tell us about your current research?

I am focusing on Developmental Biology as I study the regenerative process of locomotor limbs in the beetle Tribolium castaneum. I am trying to analyse how transcriptional perturbations retain enough plasticity to ensure a given biological process is completed. Thus, I have been studying the limits of leg regeneration in Tribolium larvae under different zld dsRNA concentrations. In previous studies, our group showed that zld is a pioneer transcriptional factor whose activity is pivotal to the success of leg regeneration in the Tribolium larvae model, with zld dsRNA treatment fully inhibiting this process. Here, I am investigating at which point this system might recapitulate function even in the partial absence of zld mRNA. So, more specifically, I am trying to observe whether the regenerative process can be characterized as a bimodal switch-like system and, furthermore, which genes are integral and which are dispensable for leg regeneration in a zld-dependent manner. In parallel, I am also observing changes in morphospace exploration during leg regeneration under these different zld dsRNA concentrations.

What is your favourite imaging technique/microscope?

I frequently use the stereomicroscope for imaging. However, after the course in Chile, I have to say that Light-Sheet microscopy has become my new favorite technique. Not for its accessibility, mind you! But for the amount of morphological data you can extract from your samples. It is simply astonishing!

What is the most impactful thing you learned in the course?

That people are more accessible and approachable than they might seem at first. I would never have thought in my life that Roberto Mayor and I would be sharing drinks and grilling steaks together, but there we were, haha! But on a serious note, the course truly highlights how important social interactions and interpersonal skills are for a scientist.

If possible, describe a bit more about the image that made the cover, including what seems to be capturing wild-caught animals!

This is a crustacean in the genus Parhyale. We caught this bad girl with Nipam Patel’s help. He told us to put a few carrot pieces inside a plastic water bottle with some stones to attract a few of these animals overnight. Keep in mind, this was done inside an aquarium-like system with thousands of red sea urchins. The next day, we actually caught some and thus began our fishing minigame, using Pasteur pipettes and clove oil as anaesthetic. This specimen was particularly interesting because it was a female carrying eggs, so we separated the mother for the Light-Sheet microscope and the eggs for downstream analysis on the confocal microscope. The latter was also brought to Chile with Nipam’s aid. 

As a side note, the confocal microscope had an extraordinary logistical undertaking behind it, from what we were told. Apparently, each piece of equipment had to be labelled and registered upon entry into the country, so this particular confocal microscope was designed to be “easily” assembled and disassembled. Truly mesmerizing stuff. 

Lastly, for staining, we left our specimen in a phalloidin solution for a week, then stained it with DAPI before our first use of the Light-Sheet microscope during the course. Retroactively, I don’t think that we stained for enough time because you’ll notice that there are myofibers clearly visible in the extremities, but on the animal’s central axis, there was barely any staining – the few observations we caught were restricted to the head and portions of the tail. So, for future participants, my advice would be to begin staining as early as possible and to visualize your possible findings during the last week of the course for better results 😊.

Where can people find you?

You can find me on LinkedIn and Google Scholar.

The other two winners, Federica Salatiello, who was funded by the BEOM Department, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Italy, and Natália Heloísa de Oliveira, a PhD student at the Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Marimelia Porcionatto, will be interviewed and featured on the Node later in the year.  

Thank you to all the students who participated in the course: Victoria Fernandez, Ana Maria Soria, Candelaria Diaz, David Arancibia, Emilia Failache, Erika Venancio, Federica Salatiello, Fernanda Salce, Fernanda Dalami, Gonzalo Spelzini, Ignacio Casanova, Ingrid Pinto, Jaime Aguayo, Juan Pablo Venegas, Luis Eduardo Sánchez , Marco Mundaca, Mariana Tovar, Natália Heloísa de Oliveira, Nicolás Zúñiga and Pablo Fernández.

Did these images inspire you to take the course? The next cohort of the International Course on Developmental Biology is currently accepting applications until 30 July 2026.

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Help I’m a Scientist! — new article: Adjusting to new laboratories, scientific fields, and academic/social cultures

Posted by , on 10 July 2026

A scientists we tend to move around a lot during our training period. Adjusting to new scientific and social environments can be challenging and intimidating but also exciting. Andrew Ramirez writes about navigating this process with the right mindset and some useful strategies.

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Results of the YEN 2026 Image Competition

Posted by , on 6 July 2026

We are delighted to announce the winners of the Young Embryologist Network Image Competition held as part of the YEN 2026 Conference, which took place on the 15th June at the Francis Crick Institute. A huge thank you to all 30 participants who submitted their beautiful images.

The winning image, Lamination in the Zebrafish Retina by Jack Nicholls, will be featured in the YEN 2027 promotional materials. Congratulations to all of our shortlisted entrants!

Winning image: Jack Nicholls – Lamination in the Zebrafish Retina

Runner-up: Ipek Gassaloglu Guler – The First Contact: Interaction Between an Embryo Model and Maternal Tissue

Runner-up: David Arancibia-Altamirano – Aristotle’s Egg Through a New Lens

1. Lamination In The Zebrafish Retina

Jack Nicholls, City St George’s, University of London

Immunohistochemistry of an 8-day post-fertilisation larval zebrafish retina stained with anti-ChAT in red (star burst amacrine cells), anti-PKCα in green (ON bipolar cells) and grey (photoreceptors), with a DAPI counterstain. The anti-PKCα signal was manually separated into the bipolar and photoreceptor cell regions and coloured in green and grey to highlight the boundary between the two layers. Imaged on a LSM800 confocal microscope.

2. The First Contact: Interaction Between an Embryo Model and Maternal Tissue

Ipek Gassaloglu Guler, Yale University

This image portrays a stem cell-derived human embryo model (blastoid) cultured on endometrial epithelial cells. This experiment aimed to visualize the initial contact between the blastoid and endometrial epithelium, to capture one of the earliest stages of embryo-maternal interaction.

Within the blastoid, the epiblast is shown in magenta (SOX2) and the trophectoderm in yellow (GATA3). To highlight the interaction between the blastoid and maternal cells, integrin B1 (ITGB1) is shown in white. F-ACTIN, which outlines cellular architecture is shown in blue. The image was acquired using a Leica STELLARIS 5 confocal microscope in tile-scan mode with a 63x objective.

3. Aristotle’s Egg Through a New Lens

David Arancibia-Altamirano, University College London, Universidad Mayor

Since Aristotle’s studies in embryology, the chicken embryo has captivated the imagination of scientists and spurred exploration of epigenesis and preformation. Echoing classic experiments with India ink, fluorescent ink injection combined with tissue clearing and light-sheet microscopy now allows us to study the beauty and complexity of vascular networks in 3D and with high resolution. Sample displayed by depth colour-coding across 3.1mm; prepared by me and my friend, Jesus Juarez.

4. Dancing Ghosts

Ornella Clara, Aix-Marseille University

At first glance, the image resembles a ghostly choreography suspended in a cosmic landscape. In reality, it captures the collective cell migration during the early formation of a gut-like tissue structure. These gastruloids spread on a laminin-coated substrate, self-organizing into patterns reminiscent of embryonic development. The transcription factor CDX2 (light blue) marks intestinal identity, while phalloidin staining (yellow-orange) highlights the actin cytoskeleton that drives cell movement, and nuclei are shown in blue-violet.

This image was acquired using confocal microscopy. It illustrates how coordinated cellular behaviour gives rise to complex tissue architecture.

Experimental work by Dalia El Arawi; staining and confocal imaging by Ornella Clara.

5. Growing Into Form

Matyas Bubna-Litic, University College London

A one-day old zebrafish embryo already has recognisable features such as the early forms of the eye and ear as well as the segmented backbone, which will go on to form vertebrae and muscle. Cell nuclei and filamentous actin are visualised in this stained fixed sample. Imaged using a Zeiss LSM980 with an Airyscan2 detector in multiplex mode.

6. Down to the Bone

Alexandra Lion, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School

A beautiful network of bones and cartilage, which in life would provide support, protection and facilitate movement of the body. The image shows a short-tailed fruit bat (Carollia perspicillata) embryo at embryonic stage 22 which has been cleared and stained with alcian blue for cartilage and alizarin red for bone. This staining allows for visualization of the still-ossifying bones of the bat autopod, and most strikingly of the skull, which appears to smile with clearly visible canine teeth. Imaged during the 2024 Embryology Course at the Marine Biological Laboratory using transmitted light on a Zeiss Axio Zoom.V16 microscope, then further processed using FIJI.

7. Octopus Embryo

Ailen Cervino Len, Baylor College of Medicine

Octopus embryo taken with Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).

8. Wiring Diagram
Ryan Cheng, Centre for Developmental Neurobiology, King’s College London

Maximum intensity projection image of the central nervous system of Drosophila melanogaster during metamorphosis. This sample was collected at around 24 hours after puparium formation and stained with an anti-Neuroglian antibody to visualize the neurite tracks. Multiple z-stacks were imaged on a Zeiss LSM800 and reconstructed in FIJI.

9. The Phases of Gastrulation
Hoang Anh Le, University College London

A Xenopus laevis embryo was imaged from the ventral side showing the different phases of gastrulation, from the formation of the blastopore lip to its closure and the beginning of neurulation. The embryo was imaged with an upright brightfield microscope.

10. beCOWming

Noemi Monferini, Developmental Biology Institute of Marseille

A bovine foetus in histological section stained with Azan trichrome, revealing the delicate architecture of foetal tissues.

We would also like to highlight the winner of the public vote, which has received 128 out of the 773 votes cast:

Weaving a Nervous System

Lamiya Dohadwala, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

A confocal view of the developing central nervous system in a Drosophila embryo. Green marks engrailed-expressing segmental compartments, while magenta highlights Fasciclin II-positive nerve fibres, tracing the intricate network of axon pathways that form the embryonic nerve cord.

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May in preprints

Posted by , on 2 July 2026

Welcome to our monthly trawl for developmental and stem cell biology (and related) preprints.

The preprints this month are hosted on bioRxiv – use these links to get to the section you want.

Developmental biology

Cell Biology

Modelling

Tools & Resources

Research practice & education

Developmental biology

| Patterning & signalling

Heterochrony of axis segmentation underlies extreme morphogenesis in the Japanese eel
Ali Seleit, Kazuharu Nomura, Leon Hilgers, Michael Hiller, Kiyoshi Naruse, Yukinori Kazeto, Alexander Aulehla

Notch signalling governs human enteric nervous system progenitor dynamics
Antigoni Gogolou, Nikolas Stefanidis, Guillaume Blin, Stanley E. Strawbridge, Alexander G. Fletcher, Anestis Tsakiridis

From Gogolou et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

A JNK-interacting protein 1 acts across the midline to mediate synaptic localization of the SARM1 calcium-signaling scaffold protein for asymmetric neuronal fate choice
Yi-Wen Hsieh, Shengyao Yuan, Jun Yang, Cesar Siete, Chiou-Fen Chuang

Wunen(s) help navigate Primordial Germ Cells by attenuating Hedgehog signaling
Amrita Roy, Adheena Elsa Roy, Airat Ibragimov, Juliana DaSilva, Kundan Kumar, Paul Schedl, Siddhesh S Kamat, Girish S Ratnaparkhi, Girish Deshpande

The Par complex regulates apical-basal cell polarity through modulation of FAK signaling homeostasis
Meiai He, Lining Liang, Yulu Wang, Yongyu Chen, Hao Sun, Lin Guo, Changpeng Li, Jingcai He, Yanhua Wu, Shiyu Chen, Tingting Yang, Fei Meng, Qiwen Ren, Linna Dong, Lin Liu, Qianqian Zou, Tianya Zhang, Xinyue Hou, Qing Guo, Dajing Qin, Hui Zheng

Constitutive Yap activation in distal nephron segments disrupts epithelial identity and nephron patterning
Zeinab Dehghani-Ghobadi, Eunah Chung, Mohammed Sayed, Christopher Ahn, Hyojin Alex Choi, Annissa Aamoum, Benjamin R. Thomson, Yueh-Chiang Hu, Hee-Woong Lim, Joo-Seop Park

Folic acid prevention of neural tube defects requires retinoic acid produced by ALDH1L1
Tamir Edri, Tali Abbou-Levy, Dor Cohen, José M. Inácio, Yehuda Shabtai, Graciela Pillemer, José António Belo, Abraham Fainsod

Hippo pathway perturbation disrupts cell fate control in the Drosophila eye
Abdul Jabbar Saiful Hilmi, Samuel. A Manning, Lucas. G Dent, Katrina A. Mitchell, Kieran F. Harvey

Ectopic hAMH-driven SOX17 expression induces hyperplastic Sertoli valve formation in mouse testes
Xiao Han, Aya Uchida, Seohyeon Lee, Kosuke Nakamura, Katsuki Takahashi, Tsutomu Endo, Ayaka Yanagida, Ryuji Hiramatsu, Akihiko Kudo, Masami Kanai-Azuma, Yoshiakira Kanai

Hepatocyte-like cells die via steroid hormone and nuclear receptor E75-mediated apoptosis
Devika Radhakrishnan, Noah Landgraf, Luigi Zechini, Alessandro Scopelliti, Neha Agrawal

Active repression of muscle fate preserves neural lineage identity during cerebellum development
Nurunnabi Mirja Shaikh, Venkata Thulabandu, Akira Inoue, Joshua Paré, Jackie Norrie, Qiong Zhang, Beisi Xu, Xinwei Cao

Trophoblast stem cells and syncytiotrophoblasts lack inflammatory responses to LPS but retain robust interferon-mediated antiviral immunity
Cristine R. Camp, Joshua Baskaran, Matthew Brown, Carly Parker, Paige Drotos, Rachel C. West

Continuous negative autoregulation fine-tunes dosage-sensitive transcription factor expression to maintain post-mitotic neuron identity
Honorine Destain, Alan Koh, Heewhan Shin, André E. X. Brown, Paschalis Kratsios

ISLET-1 knockdown causes abnormal peripheral axonal growth of mesencephalic trigeminal neurons in the chick embryo
Efstathia Artemis Koumoundourou, Sinziana Pop, Anthony Graham, Andrea Wizenmann

From Koumoundourou et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Specification of bone marrow sinusoids requires TIE2-mediated positive feedback involving COUPTFII and VEGFR3
Xiao Li, Xiwen Jia, Zhiliang Sun, Taotao Li, Beibei Xu, Xudong Cao, Kai Ding, Yulong He

BMP signaling during gastrulation pre-patterns the dorsal spinal cord
Hannah Greenfeld, Daniel E. Wagner

Human vein-to-artery endothelial cell fate transition is driven by VEGF/ERK activation and PI3K inhibition
Z. Amir Ugokwe, A.L. Pyke, E. Trimm, M. Chakraborty, X. Fan, L.T. Ang, K.M. Loh, K. Red-Horse

The Cxcl14 chemokine defines pioneer axon guidance and early circuit assembly in the inner ear
M Rumbo, A Bañón, A Nechiporuk, B Alsina

Vascular Patterning Shapes Intramembranous Ossification via HIF1α-VEGF Axis
Soma Dash, Jonathan R. Rettig, Madelaine Gogol, Paul A. Trainor

A Limbless Phenotype Uncovers an Essential Role for Shh in Amphibian Limb Initiation
Norie Kagawa, Rima Mizuno, Yoshihiko Umesono, Ken-ichi T Suzuki, Makoto Mochii

Plac1 Ablation Disrupts Signaling Pathways Essential for Prenatal Development and Induces a Preeclampsia-associated Transcriptomic Signature
Suzanne Jackman, Xiaoyuan Kong, Yulan Piao, Alexei Sharov, Elin Lehrmann, Andrew Varshine, Ramaiah Nagaraja, David Schlessinger, Michael E. Fant

Trpv4 links environmental temperature to testicular differentiation in hermaphroditic ricefield eel
Yang Zhi, Luo Tingting, Zhang Yimin, Sun Yuhua

Endothelin-1 signaling regulates chamber-specific mouse atrial cardiomyocyte cytokinesis and polyploidy
Tian Lan, Sabrina Kaminsky, Lorna Rinck, Yannik Andrasch, Eva Zickgraf, Mahak Singhal, Chi-Chung Wu

Cis-inhibition of Notch by Delta controls follicle formation in Drosophila melanogaster
Caroline Vachias, Muriel Grammont

From Vachias et al. (2026).  This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

PCP-dependent polarity propagation across neuronal columns in the Drosophila medulla
Takumi Morita, Haruka Yasuda, Jiro Osaka, Makoto Sato, Takashi Suzuki

Neural birth time and somatosensory circuit assembly are linked by Robo3 regulation of dendrite morphology
Jake E. Henderson, Nicolas Zerda Afanador, Emma Carlson, Ellie S. Heckscher

Elamipretide reverses female fertility decline during reproductive aging via regulating VEGF in oocytes
Hao-Lin Zhang, Yue Wang, Caizhu Wang, Xin Guo, Huanhua Chen, Yu-Xuan Hou, Xuan Wu, Zi-Jian Wu, Wen-Lin Pan, Rui-Jie Ma, Ping-Shuang Lu, Jinhui Shu, Shao-Chen Sun

MT4-MMP-mediated NRP1 shedding fine-tunes VEGFA signaling dynamics during embryonic brain angiogenesis
Emma Muñoz-Sáez, Natalia Moracho, Cristina Clemente, Diana Cordón-Romero, Alberto Jiménez-Montiel, María Losa-Fontangordo, Rodrigo Torrillas-de la Cal, Juan Francisco Aranda, Guido Serini, Esther Serrano-Saiz, Emilio Camafeita, Jesús Vázquez, Fernando Martínez, Alicia G. Arroyo, Cristina Sánchez-Camacho

| Morphogenesis & mechanics

Laminin and Fibronectin Cooperate to Guide Endothelial Self-Organization During Intersegmental Vessel Formation
Joaquín Abugattas-Núñez Del Prado, Koen A.E. Keijzer, Erika Tsingos, Roeland M. H. Merks

Inward thickening of embryonic neuron-packing brain walls: Mechanical integrity via curvature-associated inner-surface contractility
AryaKirone Patra, Koyuki Inoue, Tomoki Nishikawa, Taisei Hiratsuka, Koichiro Tsujikawa, Kanako Saito, Takaki Miyata, Tomoyasu Shinoda

Met regulates endoderm migration in zebrafish
Po-Shu Tu, Aaliyah M. Ruiz-Corral, Stephanie Woo, Stefan C. Materna

From Tu et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Quantitative imaging of corneal endothelial development reveals dynamic but resilient monolayer
R Ramarapu, WR Stoehr, M Miesen, N Amro, SM Thomasy, CD Rogers

Notch-driven asymmetry dictates hair-cell behavior via a fate-specific kinase
Emily Atlas, Caleb C. Reagor, Brian Frost, Sapna Krishnakumar, A. J. Hudspeth, Adrian Jacobo

The role of the roof plate for mesencephalic trigeminal neuron
Clemens Lumper, Artemis Koumoundourou, Max Neukum, Steffen Rauchfuss, Ulrike Kohler, Bernhard Hirt, Anthony Graham, Andrea Wizenmann

A Continuum of Atrial Peristalsis Initiates the Bicuspid to Quadricuspid Valve Transition
Jing Wang, Aaron L. Brown, Peng Zhao, Charlie Z. Zheng, Jau-Nian Chen, Bin Zhou, Jiandong Liu, Tomohiro Yokota, Alexander D. Kaiser, Seul-Ki Park, Alison L. Marsden, Tzung K. Hsiai

Junctional β-Catenin Stabilization Links Wnt Signaling and Force Generation
Agimaa Otgonbaatar, Sujithra Shankar, Prameet Kaur, Prabhat Tawari, Nicholas S. Tolwinski

Integrative vasculogenesis unifies distinct endothelial sources in the developing lung
Miram Meziane, Mackenzie P.H. Litz, Prashant Chandrasekaran, David Frank, Pulin Li

Spinal lumen remodeling under the control of Gli signaling mechanically drives roof plate cells extension
A. Medyouf, A.M. Daza-Zapata, I. Anselme, A. Eschstruth, K.M. Kocha, P. Huang, S. Schneider-Maunoury, P.L. Bardet

Mechanical cues from muscle contraction regulate TGFβ signaling and epitenon formation during embryonic tendon development
Emily R. King, Leonardo Campos, Joanna Smeeton, Nadeen O. Chahine, Alice H. Huang

Hyaluronan Underlies the Emergence of Form, Fate, and Function in Human Cardioids
Stefan M. Jahnel, Anna Dimitriadi, Julia Kodnar, Vasileios Gerakopoulos, Yajushi Khurana, Maximilian Mayrhauser, Tobias Ilmer, Mohamed Amin Aguech, Adam R. Hall, Keisuke Ishihara, Sasha Mendjan

Polarity remodeling of ventricular cardiomyocyte precursors during heart morphogenesis is required for ventricular chamber formation
Zihang Wei, Jingzhen Chen, Chuyao Peng, Xiaotong Wu, Anming Meng

The Drosophila ovary produces two waves of adult follicles and a novel pupal wave that turns over
Wayne Yunpeng Fu, Allan C Spradling

From Fu et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

R-spondin2 regulates planar cell polarity in the vertebrate neural plate
Ilya Chuykin, Sergei Y. Sokol

A PCTAIRE family kinase regulates eye and brain size in freshwater planarians
A. Guixeras-Fontana, A. Ginés, M.D. Molina, F. Cebrià

Development and Function of Ovarian Lymphatic Vasculature
Subhasri Biswas, Lijuan Chen, Julia Skalka, Lijun Xia, R. Sathish Srinivasan, Michael B. Stout, Xin Geng

Cdh-2 and cortical f-actin dynamically cooperate to establish a stiffness gradient which contributes to forebrain roof plate invagination
Meenu Sachdeva, Prasenjit Sharma, Pankaj Gupta, Sweta Kushwaha, Mohd Ali Abbas Zaidi, Jonaki Sen

Ultra-Slow Rhythmic Movement in the Elongating Tail of Xenopus Tadpoles
Iroha Nakane, Yuki Asakura, Soichiro Kato

| Genes & genomes

RNA Polymerase III subunit Polr3a is required for craniofacial cartilage and bone development in zebrafish
Bailey T. Lubash, Roxana Gutierrez, Nicole A. Hansen, Kade Fink, Colette A. Hopkins, Lauren B. Sands, Jessica C. Nelson, Kristin E.N. Watt

H2A.Z levels control the timing of major events at the maternal-zygotic transition
Pakinee Phromsiri, Xiaolu Wei, Claire E. Makowski, Noah Reger, Duy K. Nguyen, Humaira Marzia Alam, Yuki Shindo, Amanda Amodeo, Patrick J. Murphy, Fanju W. Meng, Michael A. Welte

Hsa-miR-92a-3p regulates cell-cycle and signaling programs during human extra-embryonic lineage commitment
Pauliina Paloviita, Emilia Hautala, Rebecca Granskog, Sonja Nykänen, Roosa Pulkkanen, Ida Kirjanov, Reetta Santaniemi, Heli Grym, Christel Hydén-Granskog, Timo Tuuri, Sanna Vuoristo

H3K9me3 as a gatekeeper of lineage-specific enhancers in embryonic progenitor cells
Kenji Ito, Greg Donahue, Takeshi Katsuda, Kenji Kamimoto, Kenneth S. Zaret

Lamins and lineage-relevant transcription factors coordinate gene expression in lineage development
Sara Debic, Xiaobin Zheng, Jiabiao Hu, Lidya Kristiani, Reni Marsela, Youngjo Kim, Yixian Zheng

Conceptus attachment coincides with initiation of an anti-inflammatory cytokine profile in the pig endometrium
Günter P. Wagner, Thainá Minela, Alexandria Ross, Jan Engelhardt, Fuller W. Bazer, Gregory A. Johnson

Single-cell chromatin landscapes visualize epigenetic barriers and reveal lineage-specific Polycomb-mediated repression
Sergei Pirogov, Aleksander Purik, Artem Ilin, Jose Ramon Barcenas Walls, Marek Bartosovic, Mattias Mannervik

Chromatin State Distinguishes Injury-Responsive from State-Stabilizing Transcriptional Programs in Hybrid Hepatocytes
Jacqueline A Brinkman, Fransky Hantelys, Jesse Raab, Adam D Gracz

A Perturb-seq screen guided by species divergence uncovers pathways for collateral artery formation
Xiaochen Fan, Ronghao Zhou, Brian C. Raftrey, Pamela E. Rios Coronado, Emily Trimm, Erin Clancy, Xinhong Chen, Jamie Bozeman, Maggie S. Chen, Shoxruxxon Alimukhamedov, Juan Alcocer, Idalina Bonham, Stuti Agarwal, Alina Isakova, Vinicio A. de Jesus Perez, Chong Y. Park, Timothy F. Shay, Viviana Gradinaru, Thomas Quertermous, Jesse M. Engreitz, Kristy Red-Horse

Depletion of S100A4+ stromal cells results in abnormal nipple development and nursing failure
Denisa Jaros Belisova, Ema Grofova, Viacheslav Zemlianski, Zuzana Sumbalova Koledova

WATER reveals heterochrony of molecular programs underlies developmental failure caused by minor spliceosome inhibition
Saren M. Springer, Abigail R. Boria, Kyle D. Drake, Kevon O. Afriyie, Kaitlin N. Girardini, Taveena Konakanchi, Isabella Stevens, Nicolas Camacho, Tomas Lopes, Rahul N. Kanadia

From Springer et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Genomic imprinting of the metabolic regulator gene Klf14 is regulated by a paternal sub-TAD anchored at Mest and a shared enhancer in mice
Amanda Ha, Natsuki Hayashi, Aaron B. Bogutz, Benoit Moindrot, Laura Gomez, Juliette Harris, Alexandre Marcil, Frank Court, Miyuki Shindo, Philippe Arnaud, Jacques Drouin, Thierry Forné, Daan Noordermeer, Shuji Takada, Kazuhiko Nakabayashi, Louis Lefebvre

microRNA expression during early development in the coral Acropora digitifera
Mila Grinblat, Arie Fridrich, Ira Cooke, Yehu Moran, Roger Hürlimann, Ramona Brunner, Natalia Andrade-Rodriguez, Nobuo Ueda, Eldon E Ball, David J Miller

PRDM3 and PRDM16 define cranial neural crest cell states in zebrafish development
Lomeli C. Shull, Silvia Meyer-Nava, Bryanna Saxton, Qootsvenma Denipah-Cook, Fahmida Raha, Julaine Roffers-Agarwal, Job Flores, Ezra Lencer, Srinivas Ramachandran, Kristin B. Artinger

Radical cell identity bifurcation in Saccharina embryos coincides with the expression of newly acquired genes
Ioannis Theodorou, Olivier Godfroy, Samuel Boscq, Bernard Billoud, Yves Dusabyinema, Bénédicte Charrier

Disordered protein COSA-2 maintains crossover-specific repair compartments to ensure meiotic crossover maturation
Celja J. Uebel, Dahlia Y. Deng, Yumi Kim, Anne M Villeneuve

dCBP-mediated histone lactylation contributes to meiotic chromosome maintenance
Keisuke Nakayama, Daisuke Saito, Yoshiki Hayashi

Aging and reproductive “rejuvenation” at a single nuclei resolution
A. C. Pearson, Jamilla Situ, Mathew Smith, Nasim Rahmatpour, Jasmine Chen, L. Y. Yampolsky

Dynamic polyadenylation safeguards developmental trajectories during paused embryogenesis
Christopher Phillip Chen, Hannah Greenfeld, Sarah Foust, Daniel Wagner

A single H2A variant prevents genome instability through piRNAs biogenesis and replication stress control
Anahi Molla-Herman, Maud Ginestet, Virginie Boucherit, Emilie Brasset, Clément Carré, Jean-René Huynh

From Molla-Herman et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Developmental conversion of the nucleolus into an RNA Polymerase II transcriptional platform in Drosophila spermatocytes
Jaclyn M. Fingerhut, Jun I. Park, Rebecca Y. Li, Romain Lannes, Archana Ashok, Yukiko M. Yamashita

Chromatin priming by transcription factor ELF3 confers transcriptional competence for amniotic differentiation on primed human embryonic stem cells
Masatoshi Ohgushi, Kaori Honda, Hitoshi Niwa, Mototsugu Eiraku

Environmental PFOA Exposure Alters Early Developmental Programming during the Maternal–Zygotic Transition
Zainab Afzal, Vandana Veershetty, Evan Pittman, Charles Hatcher, Deepak Kumar

Intermittent exposure to high ambient heat during the second half of gestation in mice causes mild alterations of reproductive endpoints in male embryos
Kimberly Abt, Ciro M. Amato, Abigail Kitakule, Yu-Ying Chen, Barbara Nicol, Karina Rodriguez, Erixberto Olivencia Álvarez, Carlos Guardia, Sara Grimm, Leslie Aksu, Korey Stevanovic, Jesse Cushman, Humphrey Hung-Chang Yao

Evolutionary insights into glucose production in vertebrate development: new findings from Arctic lamprey (Lethenteron camtschaticum)
Marino Shimizu, Wataru Takagi, Fumiya Furukawa

Pre-existing chromatin accessibility primes δ-cells for injury-induced endocrine plasticity
Jo Gräßlin, Prateek Chawla, Padmapriya Subramanian, Anuradha Rajendran, Emilie Ida Christine Walda, Alexander Froschauer, Nikolay Ninov, Jan Philipp Junker

Histone modifications analysis reveals enhancers reprogramming during maternal-to-zygotic transition
Kaiyue Hu, Chunling Wang, Dong Fang, Jiacheng Lu, Xiangrui Meng, Lingling Chen, Yage Yao, Jia Guo, Sarmir Khan, Wenbo Li, Yaqian Wang, Yang li, Hao Chen, Jiawei Xu

Long-read sequencing reveals transposable element-derived chimeric transcripts at zygotic genome activation in mammalian embryos
Saki Kawakami, Koichi Kitao, Shuntaro Ikeda, Shinnosuke Honda

Sex chromosomes and sex hormones contribute jointly and independently to sex biases in cardiac development
Daniel F. Deegan, Gennaro Calendo, Priya Nigam, Raza Naqvi, Arthur P. Arnold, Nora Engel

A spatial and temporal atlas of tubulin isotype gene expression during vertebrate embryonic development
Camilo V. Echeverria Jr., Raneesh Ramarapu, Nancy Diaz Batista, Christian Torres Lopez, Joanne Mendez, Crystal D. Rogers

From Echeverria Jr. et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Developmental genetic response of the zooplanktonic tunicate Oikopleura dioica to marine noise pollution
Eva R. Quintana, Nuria P. Torres-Águila, Ignasi Nou-Plana, Sissel Norland, Valentina Caorsi, Giorgio Blumer, Matteo Bozzo, Elettra Panarari, Giacomo Sabaddin, Simona Candiani, Irene Guarneri, Lucia Manni, Roberta Pennati, Filomena Ristoratore, Giovanni Zambon, Marios Chatzigeorgiou, Rosa Maria Alsina-Pagès, Cristian Cañestro

| Stem cells, regeneration & disease modelling

Olfactomedin4 marks luminal progenitor cells that give rise to secretory cell lineage in the mouse cervix
ShanmugaPriyaa Madhukaran, Yevgenia Fomina, Govindkumar Balagannavar, Elizabeth Payne, Jason Wilson, Lei Wang, Gary Hon, Maria Florian Rodriguez, Mala Mahendroo

Active and Passive Mechanical Deficits Precede Spinal Curvature in a Zebrafish Model of Idiopathic Scoliosis
Johnathan R. O’Hara-Smith, Samuel G. Bertrand, Julissa Ortiz-Delatorre, Rachael M. Giersch, Luke A. Rethwill, Damien M. Callahan, Daniel T. Grimes

Mitochondrial dysfunction underlies cardiac contractility and growth defects in a zebrafish model of NAA15-related heart disease
Warlen P. Piedade, Olivia Weeks, Hannah R. Moran, Alexander A. Akerberg, Michael M. Molnar, Jennifer Galdieri, Ashley Buick, Rongbin Zheng, Kaifu Chen, Hasmik Keshishian, Patrick Hart, Steven A. Carr, Calum A. MacRae, Caroline E. Burns, C. Geoffrey Burns

The metabolome and proteome of stem cell-derived human primordial germ cells: a multi-omics approach
Madalena Vaz Santos, Bauke V. Schomakers, Marta Llobet Ayala, Tara Jamali, Michel van Weeghel, Ans M. van Pelt, Callista L. Mulder, Geert Hamer

Macrophage metabolism directs regenerative versus fibrotic healing through BMP signaling in the mouse digit tip
Mimi C. Sammarco, Siqi Liu, Ni Su, Madhumidha Ramesh, Charlotte Raymond, John Carleton, Anne Le, Alexander J. Trostle, Robert J. Tower, Jennifer Simkin

From Sammarco et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Modeling human B cell development with pluripotent stem cells
Xiaoning Sun, Jamie J. Kwan, Krishna Kothari, Alexandra F. Nazzari, Astrid Kosters, Colin A. Fields, Bao Q. Thai, Deepta Bhattacharya, Michael Atkins, Kelvin Chan Tung, Xinyuan Zhao, Vladimir T. Manchev, Marion Kennedy, Eliver Ghosn, Gordon Keller

Draper-mediated efferocytosis by Drosophila imaginal disc epithelial cells clears cellular debris during regeneration
Snigdha Amit Mathure, Kaela Maghinang, Rachel Smith-Bolton

A single cell atlas defines perinatal factors that drive mouse bone marrow development
Brian M Dulmovits, Carson Shalaby, Fangfang Song, James Garifallou, Joshua Bertels, Fanxin Long, Christopher S Thom

Intrinsic regulation of intestinal stem cell fate and homeostasis by Tet
Niccole Auld, Ye-Jin Park, Tyler Jackson, Sarah Eleraky, Yara Younes, Chung-Yi Liang, Tzu-Chiao Lu, Shangyu Gong, Zhiyong Yin, Bo Sun, Yulong Zhang, Tao P. Wu, Yanyan Qi, Hongjie Li

Determining the Migration Behavior of Retinal Progenitor Cells in the Embryonic Eye Field of Xenopus laevis
Randolph L. Grell

From Grell et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

A Post-Surgical Retinal Progenitor Cell Niche is the Primary Source of Embryonic Eye Regrowth in Xenopus laevis
Randolph L. Grell

In mice, a population of male germ cells show characteristics of non-apoptotic cell death during G0 arrest
Kara Stark, Talia Hatkevich, Edward Miao, Tomokazu Souma, Blanche Capel

Intracellular pH dynamics promotes zebrafish larval tail regeneration
Cambria Chou-Freed, Christopher K Prinz, Anush Margaryan, Julie A Theriot, Daniel E Wagner, Diane L Barber

SOX9 and SEMA7A regulate cell plasticity in the postpartum mammary gland with implications for breast cancer
Lauren M Cozzens, Brendan Hinckley, Alan M Elder, Veronica M Wessells, Sonali Jindal, Pepper J Schedin, Virginia F Borges, Traci R Lyons

Rewiring Fibroblast–Muscle Axis Drives Progressive Pathology in Bethlem Myopathy
Shivashakthi Shivaraman, Laurent Gilquin, Frederic Sohm, Rawan Fareh, Laurence Legeais-Mallet, Antonella Forlino, Emilie Dambroise, Sandrine Bretaud, Florence Ruggiero

Sustained immune activation suppresses planarian regeneration
Noam Hendin, Omri Wurtzel

Quantitative CDK2 Dynamics Are Linked to Cell Fate Decisions in Differentiating Trophoblast Stem Cells
Sage Indigo G. Brill, Upasna Sharma, Estefania Sanchez-Vasquez, Ali Shariati

Direct Mapping of CDK2 Substrates in Embryonic Stem Cells Uncovers an AP-Site Repair Mechanism via HMCES Phosphorylation
Benjamin R. Topacio, Eli-Eelika Esvald, Jürgen Tuvikene, Lida Langroudi, Tapan K. Maity, Lisa M. Jenkins, Travis H. Stracker, Mardo Kõivomägi, S. Ali Shariati

Neural stem cells shape intracellular calcium landscapes to control cell identity and function
Bernice C. Lin, Isabella R. Maag, Hannah M. Shaw, Alessandra G. Jester, Asher B. Swan Adams, Beverly J. Piggott

EYA1/EYA2 and EYA3/EYA4 act as stage-specific SIX cofactors in embryonic and adult regenerative skeletal myogenesis
Camille Viaut, Maud Wurmser, Edgar Jauliac, Laura Ben Driss, Stéphanie Backer, Rouba Madani, Fayez Issa, Iryna Pirozkhova, Athanassia Sotiropoulos, Helge Amthor, Pascal Maire

Mitochondrial activity directs nutrient uptake and patterning in human gastrula models
Shiyu Bian, Marta M. Marcheluk, Ana Lima, Songyang Li, Christopher J. Price, Veronique Azuara, Ivana Barbaric, Tristan A. Rodriguez

An endodermal subpopulation generates neural and mesodermal fates in the posterior chick embryo
Panagiotis Oikonomou, Lisa Calvary, Devany Du, Juni Polansky, Giacomo Gattoni, Connor Lynch, Lingting Shi, Christian Mayer, José McFaline-Figueroa, Nandan L. Nerurkar

From Oikonomou et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Axolotl tail regeneration emerges during a defined embryonic window
Anahi Binagui-Casas, Martin Nuamah Asare, Francisco Falcon, Valerie Wilson, Elly M. Tanaka, Wouter Masselink

Kif2C safeguards radial glial integrity to prevent cortical malformation
Sharmin Naher, Takako Kikkawa, Kenji Iemura, Haw-Yuan Cheng, Shinsuke Niwa, Amjad Khan, Magdalena Krygier, Michael Zech, Meng-Han Tsai, Maria Mazurkiewicz-Bełdzińska, Jin-Wu Tsai, Laurent Nguyen, Kozo Tanaka, Noriko Osum

Mesenchymal-derived neural progenitors underlie local insulin production and neuronal transdifferentiation during retina regeneration
Bidhi Diwedi, Anindita Neog, Aissette Baanannou, Pritha Das, Romain Menard, Caroline Halluin, Dexter Morse, Kevin Emmerich, James H. Thierer, Michael Patnaude, Frederic Bonnet, Joel H. Graber, Jeff S. Mumm, Romain Madelaine

Loss of PAX4 results in disrupted endocrine pancreas development and neonatal diabetes in pigs
Ravikanthreddy Poonooru, Ki-Eun Park, Amanda Schmelzle, Bhanu P. Telugu

Glial cell states bias the regeneration of neuron types across the newt life cycle
Alonso Ortega-Gurrola, Mayra Kalaora, Dreyton Amador, Jamie Woych, Maria Antonietta Tosches

Direct lineage conversion of postnatal mouse cortical astrocytes to oligodendrocyte lineage cells
Justine Bajohr, Erica Y. Scott, Arman Olfat, Mehrshad Sadria, Kevin Lee, Maria Fahim, Hiba T. Taha, Daniela Lozano Casasbuenas, Ann Derham, Scott A. Yuzwa, Gary D. Bader, Maryam Faiz

The Il1r2-CreERT2 knock-in mouse enables inducible labeling of slow-cycling epidermal basal cells and genetic ablation of the IL-1 decoy receptor
Hung Manh Phung, Nguyen Thi Kim Nguyen, Ikuto Nishikawa, Naoki Takeda, Takeru Fujii, Guangqi Gao, Yasuyuki Ohkawa, Kimi Araki, Aiko Sada

Human models of GLE1-associated LCCS1 reveal neural crest deficiency and multisystem developmental failure accompanied by altered RNA metabolism
Tomáš Zárybnický, Otto J.M Mäkelä, Athina Balatsou, Sule R Yalcin, Sonja Lindfors, Saana Metso, Rocio Sartori Maldonado, Pavlína Gregorová, Juho Väänänen, Laura Rekonen, Kateřina Bůtorová, Peter L Sarin, Kirmo Wartiovaara, Henna Tyynismaa, Niklas Pakkasjärvi, Satu Kuure

Human spinal cord organoids recapitulate developmental and disease-associated oligodendrocyte lineage signatures
Taylor Pio, Meghna Bettaiah, Ruizi Zhao, Supriya S. Wariyar, Sabra Mouhi, Emily J. Hill, Steven A. Sloan, Brain Organoid Hub, Jimena Andersen

Single-cell transcriptional landscape of muscle-derived stem/progenitor cells reveals hallmarks of aging and rejuvenation
Kavitha Mukund, Seth D. Thompson, Chelsea L. Rugel, Kamil K. Gebis, Richard L. Lieber, Jeffrey N. Savas, Shankar Subramaniam, Mitra Lavasani

Foxp4+ Mandibular Skeletal Stem Cells Orchestrate Bone/Tooth Development and Regeneration
Lei Zhang, Dandan Cao, Xinyu Li, Hongqiang Yu, Jianfang Wang, Qiaoling Zhu, Xinyi Zhang, Chen Chen, Gongchen Li, Xinyu Xu, Xiaoqiao Xu, Dike Tao, Xuyan Gong, Pingping Niu, Xiaoshan Wu, Mengfei Yu, Rui Yue, Yao Sun

mTORC1 supports progression toward activation competence in quiescent adult neural stem cells
M. Thetiot, L. Taing, D. Morizet, G. Letort, L. Bally-Cuif

| Plant development

Ethylene-Gibberellin Crosstalk Drives Phenotypic Sex Changes in Cannabis sativa
Julien Roy, Adrian S. Monthony, Davoud Torkamaneh

Translational profiling uncovers a tonoplast sugar transporter essential for vascular system development and cell wall composition
Beate Hoffmann, Françoise Vilaine, Alexandra Launay-Avon, Deyan Markovic, Stephen Lima, Mohamad Yassine, Audrey Hulot, Nadia Bessoltane, Christine Paysant-Le Roux, Sylvie Dinant, Etienne Delannoy, Rozenn Le Hir

Stomatal patterning is shaped by the interplay with giant cell patterning in Arabidopsis
Gauthier Weissbart, Frances K. Clark, Adrienne H. K. Roeder, Pau Formosa-Jordan

From Weissbart et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

| Eco-evo-devo

Developmental small RNA transcriptomics reveals divergent evolution of the conserved microRNA miR-100 and the let-7-complex in nematodes
Devansh Raj Sharma, Christian Rödelsperger, Waltraud Röseler, Hanh Witte, Michael S. Werner, Ralf J. Sommer

Towards understanding the mechanistic basis of a sex-limited color polymorphism
Tyra Westelius, Robin Pranter, Corin Stansfield, Natalia Zajac, Nathalie Feiner

Gene co-expression networks reveal differential developmental modularity in Mammalian limbs
Aidan O. Howenstine, Karen E. Sears

Parallels in leg and wing proximal-distal patterning in Holometabola
Jeriel C. H. Lee, Tirtha Das Banerjee, Antónia Monteiro

Proposed core role for cytosolic and transmembrane calpain cysteine proteases in mitotic cell divisions
Jennifer C. Fletcher, Mary A. Biggs, Hilde-Gunn Opsahl Sorteberg

Convergent evolution of cluster-wide Hox gene regulation in Bilateria
Billie E. Davies, Francisco M. Martín-Zamora, Tom Frankish, Elise Parey, Nancy Ellis, Noura Maziak, Kero Guynes, Grygoriy Zolotarov, Yi-Jyun Luo, Ferdinand Marletaz, Juan M. Vaquerizas, Arnau Sebé-Pedrós, Nicolae Radu Zabet, Paul J. Hurd, José M. Martín-Durán

From Davies et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Distinct positional identity at the center of the caudal fin establishes forked shape
Eric Surette, John Gablemann, Katherine Backus, Brendan Fitzgerald, Tho Nguyen, Deirdre McKenna, Carmen Sofia Uribe Calampa, Sarah K. McMenamin

Comparative single-cell transcriptomic roadmap of mammalian fetal ovarian development
Yifei Fang, Shiyao Han, Junmei Zhang, Shengcan Xie, Yue Su, IISAGE Consortium, Yulei Wei, Young Tang, Jingyue Ellie Duan

Evolutionary analysis of vertebrate KCNH voltage-gated potassium channels and their expression in zebrafish embryos
Kuangyi Wu, Dingxun Wang, Ziyu Dong, Alice Yahui Zhou, GuangJun Zhang

Cell Biology

Melatonin Partially Attenuates Oxycodone-Induced Placental Stress Signaling and Fetal Brain Apoptosis in a Sex-Specific Manner
IO Adediji, K Kamra, HM Kowash, P Nouri Mousa, CO Aloba, VL Schaal, JS Davis, ES Peeples, G Pendyala, LK Harris

Inhibition of the gut ceramidase Asah2 decelerates the vertebrate ageing rate
Ayami Takaochi, Kota Abe, Yuki Sugiura, Akane Kawaguchi, Shigehiro Kuraku, Hide-Nori Tanaka, Daisuke Motooka, Kaori Tanaka, Farzana Ferdousi, Masao Nagasaki, Yasuyuki Ohkawa, Tohru Ishitani

From Takaochi et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Wunen(s) help navigate Primordial Germ Cells by attenuating Hedgehog signaling
Amrita Roy, Adheena Elsa Roy, Airat Ibragimov, Juliana DaSilva, Kundan Kumar, Paul Schedl, Siddhesh S Kamat, Girish S Ratnaparkhi, Girish Deshpande

Dishevelled-mediated clustering stabilizes Frizzled6 and Vangl2 to establish planar cell polarity in the mammalian skin
Parijat Sil, Brandon Trejo, Katherine A. Little, Danelle Devenport

Diet-derived Microbial Metabolites Modulate Stress-Responsive Gene Expression in Germ-free Zebrafish
Jayson Dale R. Capistrano, Bianka Ketheeswaranathan, Matthew S. Horn, Pham Ngoc Giao Tran, Taylor Ball, Shalvi Chirmade, Sarah J. Vancuren, David W. L. Ma, Kathryn Walton, Emma Allen-Vercoe, Terence J. Van Raay

Gluconeogenesis and glycogen metabolism in the epidermis and endoderm of Xenopus tropicalis embryo and larvae
Motoharu Aoki, Ayaka Tsuchida, Kei Tamura, Otto Baba, Kazutoshi Yoshitake, Fumiya Furukawa

Effects of Maternal Obesity on Fetal Cerebral Glucose Transporter Expression
Tyler L King, Kevin Prifti, Ruth M Gill, Sarah K England, Antonina I Frolova

The SPARK complex forms the molecular basis of vertebrate fertilization
Victoria E. Deneke, Johannes P. Suwita, Haoting Wang, Shingo Tonai, Yonggang Lu, Karin Panser, Alexander Schleiffer, Jeremy A. Hollis, Maria Novatchkova, Gerhard Dürnberger, Karel Stejskal, Gabriela Krssakova, Andreas Blaha, Aleq Adrianne R. Andresan, Muriel Mirus, Hana Marvanova, Hsin-Yi Chang, Taichi Noda, Alejandro Burga, Elisabeth Roitinger, Masahito Ikawa, An-drea Pauli

SOX9 and SEMA7A regulate cell plasticity in the postpartum mammary gland with implications for breast cancer
Lauren M Cozzens, Brendan Hinckley, Alan M Elder, Veronica M Wessells, Sonali Jindal, Pepper J Schedin, Virginia F Borges, Traci R Lyons

From Cozzens et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Integrated histological and proteomic mapping of pancreatic adaptations during porcine pregnancy
Christos Karampelias, Susanne Badeke, Christine von Toerne, Mireia Molina van den Bosch, Daniel Veselinovic, Kaiyuan Yang, Eckhard Wolf, Elisabeth Kemter, Heiko Lickert

Nucleolar Dynamics During Oogenesis
Ruoyu Li, Grace McKown, Dai Tsuchiya, Mark Mattingly, Anna Galligos, Michay Diez, Jui Feng Lu, Mary C McKinney, Sean McKinney, Boris Rubinstein, Timothy J Corbin, Melainia McClain, Carrie Carmichael, Victoria A Hassebroek, Stephanie H Nowotarski, Jennifer L Gerton, Kamena K Kostova

Supporting-like cells constitute an alternative steroidogenic lineage conserved in amniotes
Iván Barberá-Aura, Wai-Yee Chung, Emilie Dujardin, Alicia Hurtado, Mathieu Galmiche, Chloé Mayère, Maëva Guy, Béatrice Mandon-Pépin, Vedran Franke, Yan Jaszczyszyn, Rafael D. Acemel, Serge Rudaz, Jennifer Mckey, Serge Nef, Eric Pailhoux, Darío G. Lupiáñez

d-serine suppresses one-carbon metabolism by competing with mitochondrial l-serine transport
Masataka Suzuki, Kenichiro Adachi, Pattama Wiriyasermukul, Mariko Fukumura, Ryota Tamura, Yoshinori Hirano, Yumi Aizawa, Tetsuya Miyamoto, Sakiko Taniguchi, Masahiro Toda, Hiroshi Homma, Kohsuke Kanekura, Kenji Yasuoka, Takanori Kanai, Masahiro Sugimoto, Shushi Nagamori, Masato Yasui, Jumpei Sasabe

The Nuclear Pore Complex Facilitates Centriole-Nuclear Attachment in Spermatids
Danielle B. Buglak, Brian J. Galletta, Nasser M. Rusan

Modelling

Cycles upon cycles – Temperature Scaling of Medaka Development
Sapna Chhabra, Victoria Mochulska, Carina B. Vibe, Anubhuti Anushree, Kristina S. Stapornwongkul, Thomas Thumberger, Joachim Wittbrodt, Paul François, Alexander Aulehla

A Three-Layered Agent-Based Model of Adult Hippocampal Neurogenesis (HANG-AB3L) with Stochastic Cell Fate Determination
Pınar Öz, Abdulsamet Atbaşı

Noisy information about the environment: A source of individual differences within and across generations
Nicole Walasek, Marjolein Bruijning, Karthik Panchanathan, Willem E. Frankenhuis

From Walasek et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Interpretable decoding of cell fate from a snapshot of combinatorial signaling
Abdul-Bassit Fijabi, Seth Teague, Emily Freeburne, Hina Aftab Khan, Craig Johnson, David B. Brückner, Idse Heemskerk

Coupling cell differentiation to dewetting can explain villus elongation
Dominic K Devlin, Shuji Ishihara, Austen RD Ganley, Nobuto Takeuchi

Non-Newtonian Blood Rheology Significantly Alters Hemodynamic Predictions During Cardiac Looping: A Computational Study
C. Matthew, Erica C. Kemmerling, Lauren D Black III

MRI-based dental maturity in newborns reflects prenatal exposures and predicts timing of primary tooth eruption
Ying Meng, Thomas G. O’Connor, Felicitas B. Bidlack, Scotty A. Simmons, Jin Xiao, Jerod M. Rasmussen

Quantitative computerized analysis demonstrates strongly compartmentalized tissue deformation patterns underlying mammalian heart tube formation
Morena Raiola, Miquel Sendra, Jorge Nicolás Dominguez, Miguel Torres

Tools & Resources

Dynamic modelling of human neural crest development using a bioengineered stem cell organoid system
Carmen Moreno-Gonzalez, Dylan Cameron, Marcela Marques Moreno, Jade Desjardins, Taylor F. Minckley, Matthew C.D. Bailey, Cathleen Hagemann, Shail U. Bhatt, Anestis Tsakiridis, Andrea Serio, Karen J. Liu

In vitro sexual dimorphism establishment in schistosomes
Rémi Pichon, Magda E Lotkowska, Jude L. D. Bulathsinghalage, Madeleine McMath, Mary Evans, Benjamin J. Hulme, Kirsty Ambridge, Geetha Sankaranarayanan, Simon Kershenbaum, Sarah D. Davey, Josephine E. Forde-Thomas, Karl F. Hoffmann, Matthew Berriman, Gabriel Rinaldi

Self-organized hemanoids derived from human iPSCs create a niche that produces definitive extraembryonic hematopoiesis
Afrim Avdili, Martina Auer, Dagmar Brislinger, Dagmar Kolb, Gerit Moser, Andreas Reinisch, Gerald Hoefler, Claudia Bernecker, Julia Fuchs, Julia Feichtinger, Peter Schlenke, Isabel Dorn

From Avdili et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Comprehensive Lineage Tracing Maps the Landscape of Cell Fate Decisions in Mouse Embryogenesis
William N. Colgan, Luke W. Koblan, JoAnne Villagrana, Tien-Chi Jason Hou, Minming Wang, Gokul Gowri, Whitney Chandler, Leonardo A. Sepúlveda, Didar Ciftci, Karina Smolyar, Alicia Young, Lars Wittler, Styliani Markoulaki, Kyle Loh, Xiaowei Zhuang, Nir Yosef, Zachary D. Smith, Jonathan S. Weissman

Human Sperm-Induced Cell-Cell Fusion Requiring JUNO (hSPICER): A paradigm shift to test sperm fertilizing potential
Nicolas G. Brukman, Maharan Kabha, Rivka Levi, Shira Baram, Ronit Beck-Fruchter, Benjamin Podbilewicz

Tunable gene expression in zebrafish using RiboSCALE
Thomas P. Rynes, Eiman A. Osman, Maureen McKeague, Karen Mruk

An optimized workflow for spatial transcriptomics across early development in Xenopus
Chenxi Zhou, Shubhamay Das, Thomas Defard, Kyra J. E. Borgman, Subham Seal, Vincent Kappès, Thomas Walter, Iva Simeonova, Geneviève Almouzni, Anne H. Monsoro-Burq

Immortalized smooth muscle cells enhance in vitro vasculogenesis
Mohammad R. Nikmaneshi, Lennard M. Weide, Noel-Adrian Hollosi, Marc Holl, Nemo Nöh, Franciele Filardi Cimino Silva, Dan G. Duda, Lance L. Munn

A transgenic zebrafish for direct optogenetic activation of FGF/ERK signaling
William K. Anderson, Leanne E. Iannucci, Ninet Sinaii, Julia Porcino, Katherine W. Rogers

Single-cell spatial mapping reveals reproducible cell type organization and spatially-dependent gene expression in gastruloids
Catherine G. Triandafillou, Pranav Sompalle, Yael Heyman, Arjun Raj

Modeling Meibomian Gland Development and Dysfunction: A Mouse-Derived Organoid System Reveals Hippo-YAP as a Critical Regulator
Meiqin Zhong, Jingbin Zhuang, Lingyu Zhang, Rongrong Zhang, Le Sun, Wei Li, Yang Wu, Jinghua Bu

Kinemomics: spatiotemporal morphodynamic mapping of ventricular kinematic subpopulations in organotypic fetal heart slices
Gening Dong, Linyang Wu, Junho Choe, Dylan Mostert, Mingkun Wang, Jonathan T. Butcher

Conditional replacement of the mouse LH receptor with GFP, enabling imaging of cell migration during ovulation
Corie M. Owen, Katie M. Lowther, Deborah Kaback, Laurinda A. Jaffe, Siu-Pok Yee

A robust, reproducible, accessible and scalable protocol for generating three-dimensional human gastruloids
Arghakusum Das, Shekhar Patil, Karthik Ravi, Maneesha S Inamdar

Simple Methods to Acutely Measure Multiple Timing Metrics among Sexual Repertoire of Male Drosophila
Yutong Song, Hongyu Miao, Dongyu Sun, Xiao Liu, Fan Jiang, Xuejiao Yang, Woo Jae Kim

From Song et al. (2026). This image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

MyoNet and AlveoliNet: A hybrid 3D neural-net pipeline for the instance segmentation and scoring of epithelial cells in intact mammary alveoli
Colin RF Monks, Sarah A Fester, Cassidy J Nicks, Kiarra Coger, Jenifer Monks

A Functional Placenta-On-Chip Model For Maternal–Fetal Transport
Anshul Bhide, Sourav Mukherjee, Kinjalka Ghosh, Abhijit Majumder, Deepak Modi

Research practice & education

BioMARathons as a seasonal engagement model for marine citizen science: adapting BioBlitzes to challenging coastal environments
Sonia Liñán, Berta Companys, Ana Álvarez, Meritxell Turó, Carlos Rodero, Xavier Salvador, Jaume Piera

Influence of non-content instructor talk on students’ motivation-related outcomes in laboratory courses
Christopher James Zajic, Erin L. Dolan

With great power comes great responsibility: how scientific supervisors shape the wellbeing of early-career researchers
Xabier Simón Martínez-Goñi, Agustín J. Marín-Peña, Mario Corrochano-Monsalve, Adrián Bozal-Leorri

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