On the 8^th-10^th of May Disease Models and Mechanisms organised their first journal meeting entitled Preclinical Modelling of Human Disease and Therapy to showcase the latest advances in modelling human genetics diseases.

The MRC National Mouse Genetics Network was a key organiser and participant with Owen Sansom (Director) and Pleasantine Mill (PI in the Congenital Anomalies Cluster) as members of the organising committee and many speakers and poster presenters to highlight the common thread that drives our scientific interests.

The meeting was also another chance to promote the Congenital Anomalies Variant of Uncertain Significance submission portal to the many national and international colleagues interested in human congenital diseases. Read our meeting report for further insights into a great programme and hugely stimulating three days.

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Where is the lab?

We are part of the Biomedical Research Institute, in the main campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City (Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Ciudad Universitaria, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM).

Lab website

Research summary

Our aim is to integrate morphogenesis from a subcellular to a tissue-scale approach. We address this using the Drosophila respiratory system as model. This tissue forms complex morphologies that exploit basic cellular processes to build many types of tubes. In addition, these tubes interact with a range of tissues with different chemical and physical properties, making it a great system to compile sub- and supracellular mechanisms of development.

Lab roll call

Daniel: I’m the proud leader of this group.

Berenice: I recently joined this incredible lab. I’m academic technician and my participation has consisted of experimentally supporting the projects.

Luis: I’m a PhD student in the lab, part of the Biochemistry program of UNAM. I’m studying how different tissues can interact during embryogenesis to form different functional structures, from a mechanical point of view. As with all the lab members, I use the fruit fly as a model.

Fernanda: Undergraduate student (Biomedical Research), studying the role of protein secretion during tracheal development.

Pedro: In my BSc program in Biomedical Research we do one-year lab rotations. This is my first rotation and I’m studying apoptosis in the tracheal system.

Samantha: I am a Biology BSc graduate and I am currently applying to Master’s programs to officially join the lab. My research interests lie in studying the mechanisms that coordinate the development of the respiratory system with other tissues.

Rebeca: I am a Neuroscience BSc student interested in developmental biology.

Favourite technique, and why?

Daniel: Tough choice! We do a lot of live imaging in the lab and I really love watching, processing and analysing those movies. But I’m also fascinated by electron microscopy and the wonders you find in electron microcraphs. 

Apart from your own research, what are you most excited about in developmental and stem cell biology?

Daniel: Non-model organism studies. The diversity of developmental processes in nature is truly fascinating.

How do you approach managing your group and all the different tasks required in your job?

Daniel: I think open communication with all lab members is key; also, an electronic calendar. We actually have a shared calendar where we schedule our meetings. the calendar includes deadlines, confocal bookings, things to buy, etc. So that we are all aware of what’s going on in the lab.

Are there any challenges unique to running a lab in Mexico?

Daniel: We have great talent, and funding from the University is good (at least for a fly lab). The main challenge is the speed of importing strains and reagents. We really have to plan ahead.

What is the best thing about where you work? 

Daniel: Our campus is enormous! We have 10 bus lines just to get around. Besides that, our institute has hired many new faculty and we are building a great community among ourselves and with the rest of the labs here.

Berenice: Our campus is always open to the general public, it has a very active cultural life to which everyone has access. Particularly in our Institute, there are many activities that keep us together such as competitions in which the student community participates with different ideas, we all learn a lot, I love that!

Luis: This university has an infinity of opportunities to do whatever you want. Since it is the largest university in Latin America, it has a lot of cultural, sport and social activities to do. Just in our institute, here we have very diverse labs researching very different topics, and we have the opportunity of learning about other’s research with the different seminars organized every week.

Fernanda: The campus is considered a World Heritage site. It offers diverse activities and services to the entire community, including sports, scientific and cultural events, free language courses, etc. Plus, beautiful scenery can be enjoyed when traveling by bus or bike inside the campus. At the institute, our collaborative environment with experts from various fields promotes the development of exciting research projects. 

Pedro: The whole campus is really nice; especially I like that it is surrounded by nature and grass to lie on.

Samantha: I haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy the entire campus yet, but from the times I’ve been there, I can say that it’s a big institution. This facilitates collaboration with other labs for mutual support, and the campus provides excellent resources to achieve research goals. Additionally, the university offers a free bus service to travel all around the campus.

Rebeca: I like that laboratories have diverse research lines because it allows us to learn about many scientific topics and participate in outreach events that enrich our research projects.

What’s there to do outside of the lab?

Daniel: Even though Mexico City is huge, I find everything I need just within my neighbourhood: A bouldering gym, good spaces for biking, and above all, amazing restaurants.

Berenice: Near the institute, we have the university cultural zone with a wide variety of entertainment at low-cost, even free: theater, cinema, concerts, museums.

Outside of our campus -located south of Mexico City- is Coyoacán, a space with a lot of history, and Xochimilco, full of traditions and with a lake that you can explore.

Luis: Mexico City is beautiful and it’s not a secret that its population is huge. Because of this you can find any activity or group of people that matches your interests. Personally, I love musical theater and this city has amazing local and international productions. Also, if you want to have fun at night, there are so many options of bars and clubs for everyone.

Fernanda: Mexico City is a place full of museums, theaters, parks, and restaurants. This means you can find all sorts of activities and delicious food to eat. Moreover, these places are open nearly every day and are easily accessible by subway. 

Pedro: In general, I like spending my afternoons playing basketball on campus, but overall Mexico City is very diverse and you can find all kinds of activities.

Samantha: There are plenty of activities to enjoy around campus, such as visiting the botanical garden, exploring the museums, relaxing in the green spaces, or taking a long walk. These are just a few examples.

Rebeca: In the university, there are a variety of cultural spaces. You can attend art exhibitions, museums, theater plays, or concerts. Additionally, you can take art or dance classes. Personally, I enjoy learning languages, and the university offers that too. I’m currently learning Italian.

(1 votes)
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On 5 June 2024, Development’s Deputy Editor Steve Wilson (UCL) hosted a Development presents… webinar with three early-career researchers studying brain development. Catch up on the recordings of the talks.

Akanksha Jain (ETH-Zurich)

Noelia Antón-Bolaños (Harvard University)

Yuxiang Liu (UT Southwestern Medical Center)

(2 votes)
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Ishida, T., Satou, Y. Ascidian embryonic cells with properties of neural-crest cells and neuromesodermal progenitors of vertebrates. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 8, 1154–1164 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02387-8

Vertebrates, including humans, possess a “head” comprising cranial bones, the central nervous system, and sensory organs. It is believed that the emergence of the vertebrate “new head” is closely linked with the evolutionary acquisition of two cell populations: neural crest cells (NCCs) and cranial placode cells. Therefore, understanding the evolutionary origin and history of NCCs and cranial placode cells is crucial for understanding the evolution of vertebrates.

In vertebrate embryos, both NCCs and cranial placode cells arise from the border region between the neural plate and the epidermis. NCCs are unique because they produce not only cell types of ectodermal origin, such as sensory neurons and melanocytes, but also cell types of mesodermal origin, including smooth muscle cells, osteocytes, and chondrocytes.

Ascidians: fascinating model organisms for evolutionary developmental biology

Ascidians, commonly known as sea squirts, belong to the subphylum Urochordata or Tunicata, the sister group of vertebrates. They have been providing key insights into chordate developmental mechanisms and their evolution (FIGURE 1). Recent studies suggested that ascidian embryos have cells that share an evolutionary origin with vertebrate NCCs[1-3]. For example, ascidian cells called a9.49, located in the neural plate border, likely share an evolutionary origin with vertebrate NCCs[1]. Indeed, this cell pair expresses orthologous genes that specify the neural plate border cells and NCCs in vertebrate embryos. Furthermore, a9.49 cells can be reprogrammed to migratory pigment cells by overexpression of Twist, which encodes a transcription factor for mesenchyme specification. However, unlike vertebrate NCCs, ascidian NCC-like cells identified thus far do not produce cell types that are commonly of mesodermal origin. Therefore, it is believed that the multipotency of NCCs has been acquired within the vertebrate lineage after the split from the ascidian lineage. 

A key observation made nearly 40 years ago

In 1987, Nishida found that ascidian cells called b8.17 and b8.19 give rise to muscle cells, nerve cord cells, and endodermal cells near the tip of the tail of embryos[4]. Both b8.17 cells and b8.19 cells are located in the neural plate border, which abuts the neural plate cells that give rise to the central nervous system. These cells express many orthologous genes that specify the neural plate border cells and NCCs in vertebrates. Therefore, if b8.17 and b8.19 cells share an evolutionary origin with vertebrate NCCs and produce cell types that are commonly ectodermal and mesodermal origin, the potential of NCCs to produce cells of multiple germ layers may date back to the last common ancestor (LCA) of vertebrates and ascidians, contrary to the prevailing hypothesis explained above.

In light of this context, we have decided to investigate the possibility that ascidian b8.17 and b8.19 cells share an evolutionary origin with vertebrate NCCs. First, we confirmed that b8.17 cells indeed produced muscle cells, as Nishida showed previously[4]. Second, we showed that these ascidian cells expressed Msx, Zic, Pax3/7, and Snai, which encode orthologs of key transcriptional factors specifying neural plate border cells of vertebrate embryos. We indeed showed that these genes were involved in specifying these ascidian cells. The location and the gene circuit for specification indicate that this ascidian cell population shares an evolutionary origin with vertebrate NCCs.

Do neural plate border cells of ascidian embryos share the evolutionary origin with vertebrate neuromesodermal progenitors (NMPs)?

In the middle gastrula stage, the ascidian neural plate border consists of four cells: b9.34, b9.33, b9.37, and b9.38, in order from posterior to anterior. In later embryos, the anterior two cells (b9.37 and b9.38) give rise to nerve cord cells (commonly of ectodermal origin), and the posterior two cells (b9.34 and b9.33) give rise to muscle cells (commonly of mesodermal origin) and other cells near the tip of the tail region[4]. On the basis of this observation, we hypothesized that these cells may share an evolutionary origin with vertebrate neuromesodermal progenitors (NMPs).

In vertebrates, Tbx6 is expressed in NMP-derived mesodermal cells and Tbx6 negatively regulates Sox2, which is expressed in NMP-derived spinal cord cells[5]. If our hypothesis is correct, the gene regulatory circuit consisting of Tbx6 (or its orthologs) and Sox2 (or its orthologs) will also be used for fate decisions in the neural plate border cells of ascidian embryos. Indeed, the anterior cells, which give rise to the nerve cord, expressed Sox2 ortholog (Sox1/2/3), and the posterior cells, which give rise to muscle, expressed Tbx6 ortholog (Tbx6-related) (FIGURE 2). Overexpression of Tbx6-related downregulated Sox1/2/3, and promoted muscle fate. Thus, the ascidian neural plate border cells and vertebrate NMPs share the gene regulatory circuit of Sox2 and Tbx6. In addition, a comparative single-cell transcriptome analysis also supported a close relationship between these ascidian cells and NMPs of zebrafish embryos.

In this way, this ascidian cell population has properties of both vertebrate NMPs and NCCs. Therefore, the LCA of tunicates and vertebrates likely had cells with a hybrid property of NCCs and NMPs, and such ancestral cells may have produced both ectodermal and mesodermal cells.

Chordate origin of NCCs and NMPs

A logical follow-up question to ask is whether the Cephalochordata, the sister group of Olfactores, possessed NCC-like cells and NMP-like cells. Cephalochordates, commonly known as lancelets or amphioxus, are filter-feeding marine animals and are believed to retain ancestral features of chordates. Amphioxus is believed to lack cells homologous to vertebrate NCCs[6], although a recent preprint indicated that amphioxus possesses migratory NCC-like cells[7].

Interestingly, somites, notochord cells, dorsal neural tube, and hindgut of the posterior part of amphioxus embryos are produced from a cell population near the tip of the tail[8]. Therefore, amphioxus may possess NMP-like cells. Elucidating the developmental mechanism of this cell population should shed light on the evolution of the body plan of chordates.

A possible evolutionary history of the stemness of NCCs/NMPs

The ascidian NCCs/NMP-like cell population does not possess stemness: they do not show the ability of self-renewal, although they produce cell types that are commonly ectoderm and mesoderm origin. In vertebrates, the high stem cell-like potential of NCCs may depend on pluripotent factors or Yamanaka factors[9-12]. Among Yamanaka factor genes, only Sox1/2/3 was known to be expressed in the ascidian NCCs/NMP-like cells. This may be a reason why the ascidian cells do not have self-renewal ability.

Altogether, we propose a two-step model for the evolution of stemness of NCCs/NMPs: 1) the ability to produce ectodermal and mesodermal cells came first, and 2) the self-renewal ability, which led to acquisition of bona fide NCCs and NMPs. Future works on non-ascidian tunicates (e.g., Oikopleura), amphioxus, and cyclostomes will shed light on the evolution of the stemness of NCCs/NMPs. It would be particularly important to associate the evolution of the stemness of NCCs/NMPs with the evolutionary acquisition of pluripotent factor genes and whole genome duplications that occurred in the vertebrate lineages.

References

[1] Abitua, P. B., Wagner, E., Navarrete, I. A. & Levine, M. Identification of a rudimentary neural crest in a non-vertebrate chordate. Nature 492, 104–107 (2012).

[2] Stolfi, A., Ryan, K., Meinertzhagen, I. A. & Christiaen, L. Migratory neuronal progenitors arise from the neural plate borders in tunicates. Nature 527, 371–374 (2015).

[3] Waki, K., Imai, K. S. & Satou, Y. Genetic pathways for differentiation of the peripheral nervous system in ascidians. Nat. Commun. 6, 8719 (2015).

[4] Nishida, H. Cell lineage analysis in ascidian embryos by intracellular injection of a tracer enzyme: III. Up to the tissue restricted stage. Dev. Biol. 121, 526–541 (1987).

[5] Takemoto, T. et al. Tbx6-dependent Sox2 regulation determines neural or mesodermal fate in axial stem cells. Nature 470, 394–398 (2011).

[6] Martik, M. L. & Bronner, M. E. Riding the crest to get a head: neural crest evolution in vertebrates. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 22, 616–626 (2021).

[7] Markos, A. et al. Cell type and regulatory analysis in amphioxus illuminates evolutionary origin of the vertebrate head. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.01.18.576194 (2024).

[8] Schubert, M., Holland, L. Z., Stokes, M. D. & Holland, N. D. Three Amphioxus Wnt Genes (AmphiWnt3, AmphiWnt5, and AmphiWnt6) Associated with the Tail Bud: the Evolution of Somitogenesis in Chordates. Dev. Biol. 240, 262–273 (2001).

[9] Buitrago-Delgado, E., Nordin, K., Rao, A., Geary, L. & LaBonne, C. Shared regulatory programs suggest retention of blastula-stage potential in neural crest cells. Science 348, 1332–1335 (2015).

[10] Zalc, A. et al. Reactivation of the pluripotency program precedes formation of the cranial neural crest. Science 371, eabb4776 (2021).

[11] Pajanoja, C. et al. Maintenance of pluripotency-like signature in the entire ectoderm leads to neural crest stem cell potential. Nat. Commun. 14, 5941 (2023).

[12] York, J. R. et al. Shared features of blastula and neural crest stem cells evolved at the base of vertebrates. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.12.21.572714 (2023).

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

The preprints this month are hosted on bioRxiv and arXiv – use these links below to get to the section you want:

Developmental biology

• Patterning & signalling
• Morphogenesis & mechanics
• Genes & genomes
• Stem cells, regeneration & disease modelling
• Plant development
• Evo-devo

Cell Biology

Modelling

Tools & Resources

Research practice and education

Developmental biology

| Patterning & signalling

Diffusion barriers imposed by tissue topology shape morphogen gradients

Gavin Schlissel, Miram Meziane, Domenic Narducci, Anders S. Hansen, Pulin Li

Hedgehog-dependent and Hedgehog-independent roles for Growth Arrest Specific 1 in mammalian kidney morphogenesis

Nicole E. Franks, Benjamin L. Allen

Fasciclin 2 functions as an expression-level switch on EGFR to control organ shape and size in Drosophila

Luis Garcia-Alonso

The Jag2/Notch1 signaling axis promotes sebaceous gland differentiation and controls progenitor proliferation

Syeda Nayab Fatima Abidi, Sara Chan, Kerstin Seidel, Daniel Lafkas, Louis Vermeulen, Frank Peale, Christian W. Siebel

The roles of TGFβ and serotonin signaling in regulating proliferation of oocyte precursors and germline aging

Erin Z. Aprison, Svetlana Dzitoyeva, Ilya Ruvinsky

A conserved chronobiological complex times C. elegans development

Rebecca K. Spangler, Guinevere E. Ashley, Kathrin Braun, Daniel Wruck, Andrea Ramos-Coronado, James Matthew Ragle, Vytautas Iesmantavicius, Daniel Hess, Carrie L. Partch, Helge Großhans, Jordan D. Ward

Regulation of brain development by the Minibrain/Rala signaling network

Melissa Brown, Erika Sciascia, Ken Ning, Wesam Adam, Alexey Veraksa

MLT-11 is a transient apical extracellular matrix component required for cuticle patterning and function

Jmaes Matthew Ragle, Ariela Turzo, Max T. Levenson, Keya Jonnalagadda, Anton Jackson, An A. Vo, Vivian T. Pham, Jordan D. Ward

Phased ERK-responsiveness and developmental robustness regulate teleost skin morphogenesis

Nitya Ramkumar, Christian Richardson, Makinnon O’Brien, Faraz Ahmed Butt, Jieun Park, Anna T Chao, Michel Bagnat, Kenneth Poss, Stefano Di Talia

BMP signalling facilitates transit amplification in the developing chick and human cerebellum

V Rook, P Haldipur, K Millen, T Butts, RJ Wingate

A positive feedback loop between germ cells and gonads induces and maintains cnidarian sexual reproduction

Camille Curantz, Ciara Doody, Helen R Horkan, Gabriel Krasovec, Paris K Weavers, Timothy Q DuBuc, Uri Frank

AMH protects the ovary from doxorubicin by regulating cell fate and the response to DNA damage

Ngoc Minh Phuong Nguyen, Eun Mi Chang, Maeva Chauvin, Natalie Sicher, Aki Kashiwagi, Nicholas Nagykery, Christina Chow, Phoebe May, Alana Mermin-Bunnel, Josephine Cleverdon, Thy Duong, Marie-Charlotte Meinsohn, Dadi Gao, Patricia K. Donahoe, David Pepin

Functional roles of neural aPKCs in mouse brain development and survival

Aicha El Ellam, Emily J. Alberto, Maria E. Mercau, Dimitrius T. Pramio, Krishna M. Bhat, William M Philbrick, Deborah Schechtman, Carla V. Rothlin, Sourav Ghosh

Chordin-mediated BMP shuttling patterns the secondary body axis in a cnidarian

David Mörsdorf, Maria Mandela Prünster, Grigory Genikhovich

Transcriptional remodeling by OTX2 directs specification and patterning of mammalian definitive endoderm

LS Ee, D Medina-Cano, CM Uyehara, C Schwarz, E Goetzler, E Salataj, A Polyzos, S Madhuranath, T Evans, AK Hadjantonakis, E Apostolou, T Vierbuchen, M Stadtfeld

The External Microbiome Communicates with the Developing Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Embryo Through the Protective Chorion and Influences Developmental Trajectory

Emily Green, Akila Harishchandra, Prabha Ranasinghe, Richard Di Giulio, Nishad Jayasundara

Retinoic acid signaling suppresses chondrocyte identity during cartilage development and regeneration

Claire Arata, Sandeep Paul, Simone Schindler, Mathi Thiruppathy, Mackenzie Flath, Dion Giovannone, Zack Hammer, Dev Subramanie, Gage Crump

| Morphogenesis & mechanics

Histological and gene-expression analyses of pyloric sphincter formation during stomach metamorphosis in Xenopus laevis

Kei Nagura, Takafumi Ikeda, Takashi Hasebe, Yumeko Satou-Kobayashi, Sumio Udagawa, Shuji Shigenobu, Atsuko Ishizuya-Oka, Masanori Taira

Mechanical signaling through membrane tension induces somal translocation during neuronal migration

Takunori Minegishi, Honami Hasebe, Tomoya Aoyama, Keiji Naruse, Yasufumi Takahashi, Naoyuki Inagaki

Versican controlled by Lmx1b regulates hyaluronate density and hydration for semicircular canal morphogenesis

Yusuke Mori, Sierra Smith, Jiacheng Wang, Akankshi Munjal

E-cadherin tunes tissue mechanical behavior before and during morphogenetic tissue flows

Xun Wang, Christian M. Cupo, Sassan Ostvar, Andrew D. Countryman, Karen E. Kasza

Single cell transcriptomics of the Drosophila embryonic salivary gland reveals not only induction but also exclusion of expression as key morphogenetic control steps

Annabel May, Katja Röper

Endogenous OptoRhoGEFs reveal biophysical principles of epithelial tissue furrowing

Andrew D. Countryman, Caroline A. Doherty, R. Marisol Herrera-Perez, Karen E. Kasza

Biomechanical regulation of cell shapes promotes branching morphogenesis of the ureteric bud epithelium

Kristen Kurtzeborn, Vladislav Iaroshenko, Tomáš Zárybnický, Julia Koivula, Heidi Anttonen, Darren Brigdewater, Ramaswamy Krishnan, Ping Chen, Satu Kuure

Endocardial primary cilia and blood flow are required for regulation of EndoMT during endocardial cushion development

Kathryn Berg, Joshua Gorham, Faith Lundt, Jonathan Seidman, Martina Brueckner

Vascular development of fetal and postnatal neocortex of the pig, the European wild boar Sus scrofa

Eric Sobierajski, Katrin Czubay, Christa Beemelmans, Christoph Beemelmans, Martin Meschkat, Dennis Uhlenkamp, Gundela Meyer, Petra Wahle

BMP4 regulates asymmetric Pkd2 distribution in mouse nodal immotile cilia and ciliary mechanosensing required for left–right determination

Takanobu A. Katoh, Tim Lange, Yoshiro Nakajima, Kenta Yashiro, Yasushi Okada, Hiroshi Hamada

Combined forces of hydrostatic pressure and actin polymerization drive endothelial tip cell migration and sprouting angiogenesis

Igor Kondrychyn, Haymar Wint, Liqun He, Christer Betsholtz, Li-Kun Phng

| Genes & genomes

miR214 regulates sex determination through gsdf in zebrafish

N. Wittkopp, A.M. de Jesus Domingues, R.F. Ketting

Effects of HMGCR deficiency on skeletal muscle development

Mekala Gunasekaran, Hannah R. Littel, Natalya M. Wells, Johnnie Turner, Gloriana Campos, Sree Venigalla, Elicia A. Estrella, Partha S. Ghosh, Audrey L. Daugherty, Seth A. Stafki, Louis M. Kunkel, A. Reghan Foley, Sandra Donkervoort, Carsten G. Bönnemann, Laura Toledo-Bravo de Laguna, Andres Nascimento, Daniel Natera-de Benito, Isabelle Draper, Christine C. Bruels, Christina A. Pacak, Peter B. Kang

A microRNA that controls the emergence of embryonic movement

Jonathan A. C. Menzies, Andre M. Chagas, Tom Baden, Claudio R. Alonso

Mitochondrial DNA removal is essential for sperm development and activity

Zhe Chen, Fan Zhang, Annie Lee, Michaela Yamine, Zong-Heng Wang, Guofeng Zhang, Chris Combs, Hong Xu

The emerging H3K9me3 chromatin landscape during zebrafish embryogenesis

Katherine L. Duval, Ashley R. Artis, Mary G. Goll

Normal male fertility in a mouse model of KPNA2 deficiency

Franziska Rother, Dalia Abu Hweidi, Enno Hartmann, Michael Bader

Mitochondrial citrate carrier SLC25A1 is a dosage-dependent regulator of metabolic reprogramming and morphogenesis in the developing heart

Chiemela Ohanele, Jessica N. Peoples, Anja Karlstaedt, Joshua T. Geiger, Ashley D. Gayle, Nasab Ghazal, Fateemaa Sohani, Milton E. Brown, Michael E. Davis, George A. Porter Jr., Victor Faundez, Jennifer Q. Kwong

Placental Malaria Induces a Unique Placental Methylation Profile Associated with Fetal Growth Restriction

Nida Ozarslan, Corina Mong, John Ategeka, Lin Li, Sirirak Buarpung, Joshua F. Robinson, Jimmy Kizza, Abel Kakuru, Moses R. Kamya, Grant Dorsey, Phillip J. Rosenthal, Stephanie L. Gaw

Destabilization of mRNAs enhances competence to initiate meiosis in mouse spermatogenic cells

Natalie G. Pfaltzgraff, Bingrun Liu, Dirk G. de Rooij, David C. Page, Maria M. Mikedis

Patterning, regulation, and role of FoxO/DAF-16 in the early embryo

Michael S. Mauro, Sophia L. Martin, Julien Dumont, Mimi Shirasu-Hiza, Julie C. Canman

Decreased CREB phosphorylation impairs embryonic retinal neurogenesis in the Oa1-/- mouse model of Ocular albinism

Sonia Guha, Andrew M. Nguyen, Alejandra Young, Ethan Mondell, Debora B. Farber

Transcriptional Regulators with Broad Expression in the Zebrafish Spinal Cord

Samantha J. England, Paul C. Campbell, Santanu Banerjee, Richard L. Bates, Ginny Grieb, William F. Fancher, Katharine E. Lewis

KAT3 mutations impair neural crest migration through EMT regulators snai1b and snai2 in Rubinstein Taybi Syndrome

Shweta Verma, Sujit Dalabehera, Subhash Gowda, Koushika Chandrasekaran, Dayanidhi Singh, Bhavana Prasher, Sharmila Bapat, Sivaprakash Ramalingam, Chetana Sachidanandan

The polyadenosine RNA binding protein Nab2 regulates alternative splicing and intron retention during Drosophila melanogaster brain development

Seth M. Kelly, Allison Paschack, Gargi Mishra, Emma Smith, Katherine Shelmidine, Andre Yazhbin, Young Ji

A Genetic Screen in Drosophila uncovers a role for senseless-2 in surface glia in the peripheral nervous system to regulate CNS morphology

Haluk Lacin, Yuqing Zhu, Jose T. DiPaola, Beth A. Wilson, Yi Zhu, James B. Skeath

Amd1-skp2 cascade regulates hepatocyte proliferation during liver growth and hepatocellular carcinoma development in zebrafish

Ke Zhang, Botong Li, Zhiling Deng, Yong Dong, Yuanyuan Li, Bingyu Chen, Ming Zhao, Mao Lu, Xingdong Liu, Zhenhua Guo, Sizhou Huang

Single-cell landscapes of long non-coding RNAs in early vascular endothelial development and hemogenic specification

Xupeng Chen, Xiaowei Ning, Chenguang Lu, Han He, Yingpeng Yao, Yanli Ni, Jie Zhou, Bing Liu, Siyuan Hou, Yu Lan, Zongcheng Li

Chromatin remodeling protein BPTF regulates transcriptional stability in planarian stem cells

Prince Verma, Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Elizabeth M. Duncan

Two germ granule eIF4E isoforms reside in different mRNPs to hand off C elegans mRNAs from translational repression to activation

Gita Gajjar, Hayden P. Huggins, Eun Suk Kim, Weihua Huang, Frederic X. Bonnet, Dustin L. Updike, Brett D. Keiper

Dynamics of transcriptional programs and chromatin accessibility in mouse spermatogonial cells from early postnatal to adult life

Irina Lazar-Contes, Rodrigo G. Arzate-Mejia, Deepak K. Tanwar, Leonard C. Steg, Kerem Uzel, Olivier Ulrich Feudjio, Marion Crespo, Pierre-Luc Germain, Isabelle M. Mansuy

The Iroquois (Iro/Irx) homeobox genes are conserved Hox targets involved in motor neuron development

Catarina Catela, Stavroula Assimacopoulos, Yihan Chen, Konstantinos Tsioras, Weidong Feng, Paschalis Kratsios

Histone H2B isoform H2bc27 is expressed in the developing brain of mouse embryos

Saki Egashira, Kazumitsu Maehara, Kaori Tanaka, Mako Nakamura, Tatsuya Takemoto, Yasuyuki Ohkawa, Akihito Harada

CRISPR-RfxCas13d screening uncovers Bckdk as a post-translational regulator of the maternal-to-zygotic transition in teleosts

Luis Hernandez-Huertas, Ismael Moreno-Sanchez, Jesús Crespo-Cuadrado, Ana Vargas-Baco, Gabriel da Silva Pescador, José M. Santos-Pereira, Ariel A. Bazzini, Miguel A. Moreno-Mateos

| Stem cells, regeneration & disease modelling

Human myogenic progenitor cells display tenogenic differentiation potential and facilitate tendon regeneration

Xiexiang Shao, Xingzuan Lin, Hao Zhou, Lili Han, Xin Fu, Sheng Li, Siyuan Zhu, Shenao Zhou, Jianhua Wang, Ping Hu

AHR activation accelerates the resolution of TGF-β1 induced fibroblast activation and promotes alveolar type 1 cell regeneration in alveolar organoids

Andrew S. Hagan, Scott Williams, Casey J. N. Mathison, Shanshan Yan, Bao Nguyen, Glenn C. Federe, Guray Kuzu, Joseph C. Siefert, Janice Hampton, Victor Chichkov, S. Whitney Barnes, Frederick J. King, Brandon Taylor, John R. Walker, Rui Zhao, Jimmy Elliott, Dean P. Phillips, Bin Fang, Rebekah S. Decker

Derivation of human trophoblast stem cells from placentas at birth

Victoria Karakis, John W. Britt, Mahe Jabeen, Adriana San Miguel, Balaji M Rao

Sox5 controls the establishment of quiescence in neural stem cells during postnatal development

Cristina Medina-Menéndez, Lingling Li, Paula Tirado-Melendro, Pilar Rodríguez-Martín, Elena Melgarejo-de la Peña, Mario Díaz-García, María Valdés-Bescós, Rafael López-Sansegundo, Aixa V. Morales

Highly regenerative species-specific genes improve age-associated features in the adult Drosophila midgut

Hiroki Nagai, Yuya Adachi, Tenki Nakasugi, Ema Takigawa, Junichiro Ui, Takashi Makino, Masayuki Miura, Yu-ichiro Nakajima

Generation of spermatogonia from pluripotent stem cells in humans and non-human primates

Eoin C. Whelan, Young Sun Hwang, Yasunari Seita, Ryo Yokomizo, N. Adrian Leu, Keren Cheng, Kotaro Sasaki

Genetic Inactivation of the β1 adrenergic receptor prevents Cerebral Cavernous Malformations in zebrafish

Wenqing Li, Sara McCurdy, Miguel A. Lopez-Ramirez, Ho-sup Lee

Patterning effects of FGF17 and cAMP on generation of dopaminergic progenitors for cell replacement therapy in Parkinson’s disease

Amalie Holm Nygaard, Alrik L. Schörling, Zehra Abay-Nørgaard, Erno Hänninen, Yuan Li, Adrian Santoja, Gaurav Singh Rathore, Alison Salvador, Charlotte Rusimbi, Yu Zhang, Agnete Kirkeby

Impaired yolk sac NAD metabolism disrupts murine embryogenesis with relevance to human birth defects

Kayleigh Bozon, Hartmut Cuny, Delicia Z. Sheng, Ella M. M. A. Martin, Paul Young, David T. Humphreys, Sally L. Dunwoodie

Stem cell culture conditions affect in vitro differentiation potential and efficiency of mouse gastruloid development

Marloes Blotenburg, Lianne Suurenbroek, Vivek Bhardwaj, Peter Zeller

Glial ferritin maintains neural stem cells via transporting iron required for self-renewal in Drosophila

Zhixin Ma, Wenshu Wang, Xiaojing Yang, Menglong Rui, Su Wang

Cell Competition Eliminates Aneuploid Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

Amanda Ya, Chenhui Deng, Kristina M. Godek

Mouse embryonic stem cells require sustained DNMT1-mediated DNA methylation maintenance for epigenomic, genomic and functional integrity

Elizabeth Elder, Anthony Lemieux, Lisa-Marie Legault, Maxime Caron, Virginie Bertrand-Lehouillier, Thomas Dupas, Noël Raynal, Guillaume Bourque, Daniel Sinnett, Nicolas Gévry, Serge McGraw

Cell-matrix force transmission regulates the loss of naïve pluripotency in mouse embryonic stem cells

Srivatsava Viswanadha, Manuel Gómez-González, Celine Labouesse, Valeria Venturini, Xavier Trepat, Kevin Chalut, Zanetta Kechagia, Pere Roca-Cusachs

Embryonic diversification of adult neural stem cells and ependymal cells

Shima Yamaguchi, Takaaki Kuniya, Hanae Omiya, Yutaka Suzuki, Masahide Seki, Hideki Ukai, Lingyan Fang, Yujin Harada, Daichi Kawaguchi, Yukiko Gotoh

Delivery of A Jagged1-PEG-MAL hydrogel with Pediatric Human Bone Cells Regenerates Critically-Sized Craniofacial Bone Defects

Archana Kamalakar, Brendan Tobin, Sundus Kaimari, M. Hope Robinson, Afra I. Toma, Timothy Cha, Samir Chihab, Irica Moriarity, Surabhi Gautam, Pallavi Bhattaram, Shelly Abramowicz, Hicham Drissi, Andrés J. García, Levi B. Wood, Steven L. Goudy

Transcriptomic analysis identifies injury-responsive fibroblast populations as potential mediators of Wnt-dependent spinal cord regeneration

Samuel R. Alper, Deeptha Vasudevan, Maya K. Wheeler, Samin Panahi, Richard I. Dorsky

Sex specific emergence of trisomic Dyrk1a-related skeletal phenotypes in the development of a Down syndrome mouse model

Jonathan M. LaCombe, Kourtney Sloan, Jared R. Thomas, Matthew P. Blackwell, Isabella Crawford, Joseph M. Wallace, Randall J. Roper

BMP signaling promotes heart regeneration via alleviation of replication stress

Mohan Dalvoy Vasudevarao, Denise Posadas Pena, Michaela Ihle, Chiara Bongiovanni, Pallab Maity, Simone Redaelli, Kathrin Happ, Dominik Geissler, Hossein Falah Mohammadi, Melanie Rall-Scharpf, Chi-Chung Wu, Arica Beisaw, Karin Scharffetter-Kochanek, Gabriele D’Uva, Lisa Wiesmüller, Gilbert Weidinger

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 pioneer transcription factor Zelda facilitates the exit from regeneration and restoration of patterning in Drosophila

Anish Bose, Keaton Schuster, Chandril Kodali, Surabhi Sonam, Rachel Smith-Bolton

Loss of the mitochondrial carrier, SLC25A1, during embryogenesis induces a unique senescence program controlled by p53

Anna Kasprzyk-Pawelec, Mingjun Tan, Raneen Rahhal, Alec McIntosh, Harvey Fernandez, Rami Mosaoa, Lei Jiang, Gray W. Pearson, Eric Glasgow, Jerry Vockley, Christopher Albanese, Maria Laura Avantaggiati

| Plant development

Transit amplifying cells balance growth and differentiation in above-ground meristems

Jessica Joossens, Denia Herwegh, Reinout Laureyns, Julie Pevernagie, Tom Van Hautegem, Lotte Pollaris, Samik Bhattacharya, Christian Korfhage, Thomas Depuydt, Kirin Demuynck, Klaas Vandepoele, Yvan Saeys, Clinton Whipple, Josh Strable, Hilde Nelissen

Dual role of BdMUTE during stomatal development in the model grass Brachypodium distachyon

Roxane P. Spiegelhalder, Lea S. Berg, Tiago D. G. Nunes, Melanie Dörr, Barbara Jesenofsky, Heike Lindner, Michael T. Raissig

The major nucleoid-associated protein WHIRLY1 promotes chloroplast development in barley

Karin Krupinska, Jürgen Eirich, Urska Repnik, Christine Desel, Monireh Saeid Nia, Anke Schäfer, Ulrike Voigt, Bationa Bennewitz, Wolfgang Bilger, Iris Finkemeier, Götz Hensel

A regulatory gene network that couples floral transition to shoot apical meristem morphology in Arabidopsis

Enric Bertran Garcia de Olalla, Gabriel Rodriguez-Maroto, Martina Cerise, Alice Vayssieres, Edouard Severing, Yaiza Lopez-Sampere, Kang Wang, Sabine Schaefer, Pau Formosa-Jordan, George Coupland

Brassinosteroids function as the plant male and female reproductive hormone coordinating gene expression.

Kumi Matsuura-Tokita, Takamasa Suzuki, Yusuke Kimata, Yumiko Takebayashi, Minako Ueda, Takeshi Nakano, Hitoshi Sakakibara, Akihiko Nakano, Tetsuya Higashiyama

Unequal genetic redundancies among MYC bHLH transcription factors underlie seedling photomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis

Vikas Garhwal, Sreya Das, Sreeramaiah N Gangappa

Hypocotyl Development in Arabidopsis and other Brassicaceae Displays Evidence of Photoperiodic Memory

James Ronald, Sarah C.L. Lock, Will Claydon, Zihao Zhu, Kayla McCarthy, Elizabeth Pendlington, Ethan J. Redmond, Gina Y.W. Vong, Sanoj P. Stanislas, Seth J. Davis, Marcel Quint, Daphne Ezer

Mechanism of nucleus-chloroplast communication by alternative promoter usage and stromules to establish photomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis

Jae-Hyung Lee, Thu Minh Doan, Sandhya Senthilkumar, Chan Yul Yoo

Arabidopsis ABCC4 encodes a cytokinin efflux transporter and is involved in root system development

Takuya Uragami, Takatoshi Kiba, Mikiko Kojima, Yumiko Takebayashi, Yuzuru Tozawa, Yuki Hayashi, Toshinori Kinoshita, Hitoshi Sakakibara

Beyond the phloem: A general role of the Arabidopsis OCTOPUS gene family in controlling plant growth vigour

Simona Crivelli, Kai Bartusch, M. Aguila Ruiz-Sola, Mario Coiro, Signe Schmidt Kjølner Hansen, Elisabeth Truernit

The exogenous application of the apocarotenoid retinaldehyde negatively regulates auxin-mediated root growth

Kang Xu, Haoran Zeng, Feiyang Lin, Emi Yumoto, Masashi Asahina, Ken-ichiro Hayashi, Hidehiro Fukaki, Hisashi Ito, Masaaki K. Watahiki

Mechanical forces instruct division plane orientation of cambium stem cells during radial growth in Arabidopsis thaliana

Mathias Höfler, Xiaomin Liu, Thomas Greb, Karen Alim

MDF regulates both auxin-dependent and -independent pathways of adventitious root regeneration in Arabidopsis

Fahad Aldowigh, Rodrigo Matus, Haozhan Gao, Julien Agneessens, Jennifer Topping, Keith Lindsey

CLAVATA signalling shapes barley inflorescence architecture by controlling activity and determinacy of shoot apical and rachilla meristems

Isaia Vardanega, Jan Eric Maika, Edgar Demesa-Arevalo, Tianyu Lan, Gwendolyn K. Kirschner, Jafargholi Imani, Ivan F. Acosta, Katarzyna Makowska, Götz Hensel, Thilanka Ranaweera, Shin-Han Shiu, Thorsten Schnurbusch, Maria von Korff Schmising, Rüdiger Simon

Retinoblastoma-related (RBR) has both canonical and non-canonical regulatory functions during thermo-morphogenic responses in Arabidopsis seedlings

Rasik Shiekh Bin Hamid, Fruzsina Nagy, Nikolett Kaszler, Ildikó Domonkos, Magdolna Gombos, Eszter Molnár, Aladár Pettkó-Szandtner, László Bögre, Attila Fehér, Zoltán Magyar

| Evo-devo

Single-cell transcriptomics reveals evolutionary reconfiguration of embryonic cell fate specification in the sea urchin Heliocidaris erythrogramma

Abdull J. Massri, Alejandro Berrio, Anton Afanassiev, Laura Greenstreet, Krista Pipho, Maria Byrne, Geoffrey Schiebinger, David R. McClay, Gregory A. Wray

Contrasting the development of larval and adult body plans during the evolution of biphasic lifecycles in sea urchins

Brennan D. McDonald, Abdull J. Massri, Alejandro Berrio Escobar, Maria Byrne, David R. McClay, Gregory A. Wray

Comparative single cell analysis reveals complex patterns of cell type and cell signaling innovations at the fetal-maternal interface

Daniel J. Stadtmauer, Silvia Basanta, Jamie D. Maziarz, Alison G. Cole, Gülay Dagdas, Gilbecca Rae Smith, Frank van Breukelen, Mihaela Pavličev, Günter P. Wagner

The embryo-derived protein PDI is highly conserved among placental mammals and alters the function of the endometrium in species with different implantation strategies

Haidee Tinning, Alysha Taylor, Dapeng Wang, Anna Pullinger, Georgios Oikonomou, Miguel A. Velazquez, Paul Thompson, Achim Treumann, Peter T. Ruane, Mary J O’Connell, Niamh Forde

Differences in size and number of embryonic type-II neuroblast lineages are associated with divergent timing of central complex development between beetle and fly

Simon Rethemeier, Sonja Fritzsche, Dominik Mühlen, Gregor Bucher, Vera S. Hunnekuhl

Evidence of neocortex-like primitive laminar pallium in avian embryo and its organization by microRNA-19b

Archita Mishra, Niveda Udaykumar, Suvimal Kumar Sindhu, Jonaki Sen

Evolution of the sex-determination gene Doublesex within the termite lineage

Kokuto Fujiwara, Satoshi Miyazaki, Kiyoto Maekawa

Convergent evolution associated with the loss of developmental diapause may promote extended lifespan in bees

Priscila K. F. Santos, Karen M. Kapheim

Sperm competition favours intermediate sperm size in a hermaphrodite

Santhosh Santhosh, Dieter Ebert, Tim Janicke

The role of heterochronic gene expression and regulatory architecture in early developmental divergence

Nathan D. Harry, Christina Zakas

Combinatorial Wnt signaling determines wing margin color patterns of the swallowtail butterfly ground plan

Anyi Mazo-Vargas, Alan Liang, Brian Liang, Jeanne M.C. McDonald, Arnaud Martin, Robert D. Reed

A red algal polysaccharide influences the multicellular development of the choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta

Olivia Perotti, Gabriel Viramontes Esparza, David S. Booth

Total-evidence phylogenetic analysis resolves the evolutionary timescale of mantis shrimps (Stomatopoda) and provides insights into their molecular and morphological evolutionary ratesv

Cara Van Der Wal, Shane T. Ahyong, Maxim W.D. Adams, Nathan Lo, Simon Y.W. Ho

A novel expression domain of extradenticle underlies the evolutionary developmental origin of the chelicerate patella

Benjamin C. Klementz, Georg Brenneis, Isaac A. Hinne, Ethan M. Laumer, Sophie M. Neu, Grace M. Hareid, Guilherme Gainett, Emily V.W. Setton, Catalina Simian, David E. Vrech, Isabella Joyce, Austen A. Barnett, Nipam H. Patel, Mark S. Harvey, Alfredo V. Peretti, Monika Gulia-Nuss, Prashant P. Sharma

The intracellular symbiont Wolbachia alters Drosophila development and metabolism to buffer against nutritional stress

Amelia RI Lindsey, Jason M Tennessen, Michael A Gelaw, Megan W Jones, Audrey J Parish, Irene LG Newton, Travis Nemkov, Angelo D’Alessandro, Madhulika Rai, Nicole Stark

Early development of the mineralized external skeleton of the polyplacophoran mollusk, with insight into the evolutionary history of shell plates and spicules

Hiroki Yoshikawa, Yoshiaki Morino, Hiroshi Wada

A Sex specific homologue of snake Waprin is essential for Embryonic Development in the Red Flour Beetle, Tribolium castaneum

Chhavi Choudhary, Divyanshu Kishore, Keshav Kumar Meghwanshi, Vivek Verma, Jayendra Nath Shukla

Cell Biology

An actomyosin network organizes niche morphology and responds to feedback from recruited stem cells

Bailey N. Warder, Kara A. Nelson, Justin Sui, Lauren Anllo, Stephen DiNardo

The Rac1 homolog CED-10 is a component of the MES-1/SRC-1 pathway for asymmetric division of the C. elegans EMS blastomere

Helen Lamb, Małgorzata Liro, Krista Myles, McKenzi Fernholz, Holly Anderson, Lesilee S. Rose

Plasmodium NEK1 coordinates MTOC organisation and kinetochore attachment during rapid mitosis in male gamete formation

Mohammad Zeeshan, Ravish Rashpa, David J. Ferguson, George Mckeown, Raushan Nugmanova, Amit K. Subudhi, Raphael Beyeler, Sarah L. Pashley, Robert Markus, Declan Brady, Magali Roques, Andrew R. Bottrill, Andrew M. Fry, Arnab Pain, Sue Vaughan, Anthony A. Holder, Eelco C. Tromer, Mathieu Brochet, Rita Tewari

Endothelial deletion of p53 generates transitional endothelial cells and improves lung development during neonatal hyperoxia

Lisandra Vila Ellis, Jonathan D Bywaters, Jichao Chen

Elevated temperature fatally disrupts nuclear divisions in the early Drosophila embryov

Girish Kale, Pratika Agarwal, J Jaime Diaz-Larrosa, Steffen Lemke

Temporal and anteriorly positioned mitotic zones drive asymmetric microtubule patterns needed for Left-Right Organizer development

Yan Wu, Yiling Lan, Favour Ononiwu, Abigail Poole, Kirsten Rasmussen, Jonah Da Silva, Abdalla Wael Shamil, Li-En Jao, Heidi Hehnly

Haploidy-linked cell proliferation defects limit larval growth in Zebrafish

Kan Yaguchi, Daiki Saito, Triveni Menon, Akira Matsura, Miyu Hosono, Takeomi Mizutani, Tomoya Kotani, Sreelaja Nair, Ryota Uehara

IP3R1 is required for meiotic progression and embryonic development by regulating mitochondrial calcium and oxidative damage

Chang Zhang, Xiaoqing Sun, Deyi Wu, Guoxia Wang, Hainan Lan, Xin Zheng, Suo Li

Epidermal cell fusion promotes the transition from an embryonic to a larval transcriptome in C. elegans

Owen H. Funk, Daniel L. Levy, David S. Fay

Differential behavior of pericytes and adipose stromal cells in vasculogenesis and angiogenesis

Julian Gonzalez-Rubio, Hiltrud Königs-Werner, Christian G. Cornelissen, Anja Lena Thiebes

Endosomal-lysosomal organellar assembly (ELYSA) structures coordinate lysosomal degradation systems through mammalian oocyte-to-embryo transition

Yuhkoh Satouh, Takaki Tatebe, Isei Tanida, Junji Yamaguchi, Yasuo Uchiyama, Ken Sato

Modelling

Growth regulation bringing modularity to morphogenesis of complex three-dimensional exoskeletons

Hiroshi C. Ito, Yu Uchiumi

How a reaction-diffusion signal can control spinal cord regeneration in axolotls: A modelling study

Valeria Caliaro, Diane Peurichard, Osvaldo Chara

An adaptive numerical method for multi–cellular simulations of tissue development

James M. Osborne

Life history shapes variation in egg composition in the blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus

Cristina-Maria Valcu, Richard A. Scheltema, Ralf M. Schweiggert, Mihai Valcu, Kim Teltscher, Dirk M. Walther, Reinhold Carle, Bart Kempenaers

Stochastic dynamics of two-compartment models with regulatory mechanisms for hematopoiesis

Ren-Yi Wang, Marek Kimmel, Guodong Pang

Waves, patterns and bifurcations: a tutorial review on the vertebrate segmentation clock

Paul François, Victoria Mochulska

Tools & Resources

Engineering fluorescent reporters in human pluripotent cells and strategies for live imaging human neurogenesis

Alwyn Dady, Lindsay Davidson, Nicolas Loyer, Timothy Sanders, Jens Januschke, Kate G. Storey

Single-cell RNA sequencing of mutant whole mouse embryos: from the epiblast to the end of gastrulation

Elizabeth Abraham, Mikel Zubillaga, Thomas Roule, Eleonora Stronati, Naiara Akizu, Conchi Estaras

Unraveling the proteome landscape of mouse hematopoietic stem and progenitor compartment with high sensitivity low-input proteomics

Nil Üresin, Valdemaras Petrosius, Pedro Aragon-Fernandez, Benjamin Furtwängler, Erwin M. Schoof, Bo T. Porse

Reconstruction of artificial nuclei with nuclear import activity in living mouse oocytes

Nao Yonezawa, Tomoko Shindo, Haruka Oda, Hiroshi Kimura, Yasushi Hiraoka, Tokuko Haraguchi, Kazuo Yamagata

Topological data analysis of pattern formation of human induced pluripotent stem cell colonies

Iryna Hartsock, Eunbi Park, Jack Toppen, Peter Bubenik, Elena S. Dimitrova, Melissa L. Kemp, Daniel A. Cruz

Noninvasive time-lapse 3D subcellular analysis of embryo development for machine learning-enabled prediction of blastocyst formation

Chungha Lee, Geon Kim, Taeseop Shin, Sangho Lee, Jae Young Kim, Kyoung Hee Choi, Jieun Do, Jaehyeong Park, Jaephil Do, Ji Hyang Kim, YongKeun Park

Engineering an fgfr4 knockout zebrafish to study its role in development and disease

Emma N. Harrison, Amanda N. Jay, Matthew R. Kent, Talia P. Sukienik, Collette A. LaVigne, Genevieve C. Kendall

Deep learning-based reconstruction of embryonic cell-division cycle from label-free microscopy time-series of evolutionarily diverse nematodes

Dhruv Khatri, Chaitanya A Athale

Embryo spatial 3D genomics

Yuang Ma, Bo Gou, Yuetong Xu, Muya Shu, Falong Lu, Xiang Li

Barcoding Notch signaling in the developing brain

Abigail Siniscalco, Roshan Priyarangana Perera, Jessie E Greenslade, Aiden Masters, Hannah M Doll, Bushra Raj

T-ChIC: multi-omic detection of histone modifications and full-length transcriptomes in the same single cell

Peter Zeller, Marloes Blotenburg, Vivek Bhardwaj, Buys Anton de Barbanson, Fredrik Salmen, Alexander van Oudenaarden

OoCount: A Machine-Learning Based Approach to Mouse Ovarian Follicle Counting and Classification

Lillian Folts, Anthony S. Martinez, Corey Bunce, Blanche Capel, Jennifer McKey

An in vivo CRISPR screen in chick embryos reveals a role for MLLT3 in specification of neural cells from the caudal epiblast

Ashley RG Libby, Tiago Rito, Arthur Radley, James Briscoe

Analysis of developmental gene expression using smFISH and in silico staging of C. elegans embryos

Laura Breimann, Ella Bahry, Marwan Zouinkhi, Klim Kolyvanov, Lena Annika Street, Stephan Preibisch, Sevinç Ercan

Deep-Tissue Spatial Omics: Imaging Whole-Embryo Transcriptomics and Subcellular Structures at High Spatial Resolution

Valentina Gandin, Jun Kim, Liang-Zhong Yang, Yumin Lian, Takashi Kawase, Amy Hu, Konrad Rokicki, Greg Fleishman, Paul Tillberg, Alejandro Aguilera Castrejon, Carsen Stringer, Stephan Preibisch, Zhe J. Liu

Deep learning pipeline reveals key moments in human embryonic development predictive of live birth in IVF

Camilla Mapstone, Helen Hunter, Daniel Brison, Julia Handl, Berenika Plusa

Mesendodermal cells fail to contribute to heart formation following blastocyst injection

Biyi Li, Chulan Kwon

Enhanced endogenous gene tagging in human induced pluripotent stem cells via AAV6-mediated donor delivery

Erik A. Ehlers, Kyle N. Klein, Margaret A. Fuqua, Julia R. Torvi, Javier Chávez, Lauren M. Kuo, Jacob McCarley, Jacqueline E. Smith, Gaea Turman, Danielle Yi, Ruwanthi N. Gunawardane, Brock Roberts

Marsupial single-cell transcriptomics provides an atlas of developmental heterochrony

Sergio Menchero, Christopher Barrington, Gregorio Alanis-Lobato, Wazeer Varsally, Kathy K. Niakan, James M. A. Turner

Multiplexed single cell transcriptomics optimizes mesodermal patterning and hemogenic endothelial output from murine embryonic stem cells

Barbara Varnum-Finney, Adam M. Heck, Sanjay R. Srivatsan, Stacey Dozono, Rachel Wellington, Cynthia Nourigat-McKay, Tessa Dignum, Cole Trapnell, Brandon Hadland

Spatiotemporal profiling of neural crest cells in the common wall lizard Podarcis muralis

Robin Pranter, Nathalie Feiner

Spatiotemporally resolved transcriptome atlas of developing mouse placenta reveals mechanisms of embryonic lethality

Yuting Fu, Xiaoqi Zeng, Yifang Liu, Shikai Jia, Yujia Jiang, Jia Ping Tan, Yue Yuan, Tianchang Xia, Yun Mei, Shan Wen, Xiaojing Liu, Yue You, Weike Pei, Chengshuo Yang, Sida Shao, Saifeng Cheng, Luyi Tian, Longqi Liu, Xiaoyu Wei, Xiaodong Liu

Research practice & education

PROPEL: a scalable model for postbaccalaureate training to promote diversity in the biomedical workforce

Jessica Allen, Ekland Abdiwahab, Meghan D. Morris, Claude Jourdan Le Saux, Paola Betancur, K. Mark Ansel, Ryan D. Hernandez, Todd G. Nystul

Building Brains for Robots: A Hands-On Approach to Learning Neuroscience in the Classroom

Raha Kannan, Maribel Gendreau, Alex Hatch, Sydney K. Free, Kithinji Muriungi, Yash A. Garje, Jennifer DeBoer, Gregory J. Gage, Christopher A. Harris

“The best home for this paper”: A qualitative study of how authors select where to submit manuscripts

Lauren A. Maggio, Natascha Chtena, Juan Pablo Alperin, Laura Moorhead, John M. Willinsky

Enabling preprint discovery, evaluation, and analysis with Europe PMC

Mariia Levchenko, Michael Parkin, Johanna McEntyre, Melissa Harrison

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In this SciArt profile, we meet Gabriela Krejčová, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic, who enjoys making nature-inspired jewellery.

Can you tell us about your background and what you work on now?

My first scientific endeavour was carried out in the field of cancer immunotherapy. I found the metabolic changes of tumour cells particularly remarkable at the time. After completing my undergraduate studies, I started looking for a new laboratory where I could conduct my master’s thesis. I came across Dr. Adam Bajgar, who at the time was working on the metabolic polarization of Drosophila melanogaster immune cells during bacterial infection. Since it is well established that the metabolic setting of pro-inflammatory macrophages resembles in many aspects the metabolic changes occurring in some types of cancer cells, I changed my field of study because this topic represented a nice link to my previous research focus. During my PhD studies, I began to look into the signalling molecules released by the immune cells in response to their metabolic polarization, which subsequently mediate the inter-organ communication. I also become fascinated by the functional versatility of macrophages and their regulatory role in various stress conditions, which is my current focus.

Were you always going to be a scientist?

I would say I’ve always enjoyed unravelling the unknown, whether it was the mysteries of nature or Egyptian hieroglyphs. I remember wishing for a little spooky laboratory, and I cherish the memories of getting my own small kid’s microscope and exploring the world up close. Oddly enough, my dream job as a child was actually a fashion designer, which reflected my love for art.

And what about art – have you always enjoyed it?

By all means! I’ve always enjoyed all kinds of crafts and I’ve always had a desire to create pretty things – from drawings and paintings to jewellery and decorations such as traditional Easter eggs decorated with wax. Another passion of mine has always been dancing, so I found another way to express my urge for creating in designing and decorating dance costumes.

How do you make your jewellery?

I make my jewellery exclusively from products of nature and clear epoxy resin. So first, I forage for all sorts of flowers, mushrooms, lichens, mosses, ferns or berries to create tiny microworld compositions. Before casting, which is usually a multi-step process, all materials must be dried in a special way to retain their original colours and shapes. After demoulding, all must be sanded and polished, which is the most time-consuming part. Then I attach the jewellery findings and the piece is finally finished. The whole process takes approximately two weeks.

What or who are your most important artistic influences?

My biggest muse is definitely nature itself. My goal is to preserve the beauty and diversity of shapes, structures, patterns and colours that nature has already created, and perhaps just slightly transform these pieces into small compositions and make them wearable. In this way, I would like to give people a piece of unspoiled nature that they can keep constantly with them.

Does your science influence your art at all, or are they separate worlds?

I would say it’s rather the opposite – my art influences my scientific outputs, or at least I hope so. I firmly believe that scientific imaging techniques provide ample room for artistic expression, and I hope that this is sometimes reflected in my scientific output. I especially enjoy the visualization of macrophages by confocal and electron microscopy, and the beauty of immune cells brought me much joy during my PhD studies.

What are you thinking of working on next?

It is now spring season in the Czech Republic, so everything is thriving and blooming. For me, it is the time of year when I need to stock up for the upcoming year so I have enough material to make jewellery in the colder months. Therefore, I have a lot of collecting, foraging and mushrooming ahead of me, which means a lot of quiet and fulfilling time spent in nature.

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On the topic of mechanics and morphogenesis chaired by Development Editor, James Wells (Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center)

Wednesday 19 June – 15:00 BST

At the speakers’ discretion, the webinar will be recorded for viewing on demand. To see the other webinars scheduled in our series, and to catch up on previous talks, please visit: thenode.biologists.com/devpres

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Neurofly2024 is the main conference on neurobiology of Drosophila, taking place every 2 years, and has been rotating across Europe for the last 40 years. The Company of Biologists Travel Bursaries will cover the registration fees of PhD students, enabling a wider participation in the Neurofly.

We have now advertised the bursaries, please visit:

https://uobevents.eventsair.com/neurofly24/the-company-of-biologists-travel-awards

And: https://uobevents.eventsair.com/neurofly24/

The 20th Biennial European Drosophila Research Conference (Neurofly) will take place from 2 to 6 September 2024 at the beautiful University of Birmingham campus, in UK.

Neurofly 2024 will allow the opportunity for researchers from across the globe to meet to discuss their latest research and observations principally on the neurobiology of Drosophila but also including studies using other invertebrate model organisms. Drosophila offers major advantages for neurobiological research due to the wealth of genetic tools to observe and manipulate the nervous system. We aim to provide a venue for wide-ranging discussions and interactions between junior and senior researchers in an inclusive interdisciplinary environment that will allow the exchange of results, ideas and new concepts. A wide range of sessions will include Developmental and cellular neuroscience, Brain homeostasis and metabolism, Brain disease, injury and ageing, Gene expression and molecular neuroscience, Neural circuits and behaviour, Plasticity and remodelling. 

We have lined up eight wonderful plenary speakers and the rest of talks will be selected from abstract submissions, allowing exciting, emerging research to be presented by early career and established researchers. We will also have a practical demo workshop on bridging connectomics and transcriptomics. And fun activities, including a trip to Stratford and the gala conference dinner.

Registration early bird and abstract submission deadline is 16 June 2024.

Please be aware that lecture theatre capacity is limited: please register with time to avoid disappointments.

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A recent paper “Neural crest origin of sympathetic neurons at the dawn of vertebrates” challenges the prevailing dogma that the sympathetic ganglia arose only in jawed vertebrates. Instead, based on the findings in the sea lamprey, the authors suggest a late-developing rudimentary sympathetic nervous system may be present in the earliest jawless vertebrates. First author Brittany Edens and corresponding author Marianne Bronner tell us the story behind the paper.

Wild-caught mature ammocete sourced from the Great Lakes.

How did the project start?

Marianne: Brittany was doing some staining of lamprey larvae with different antibody markers with the goal of defining different types of neurons in the developing enteric nervous system. We got together to look over the data and realized that some of the neuronal staining was not in the gut but dorsal to the gut in a position that was appropriate for the sympathetic nervous system. This was a surprise since lamprey are not supposed to have a sympathetic nervous system. So we started looking for more markers to test this possibility more rigorously.  

Detection of sympathoblasts in late embryonic lamprey: The catecholamine biosynthetic processing enzyme tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) is detected by immunohistochemistry at T27 in (a) transverse sections and (b) lateral whole-mount. TH⁺ sympathoblasts are localized dorsal to the yolk tube and flank the midline in bilateral streams. Scale bars=50mm (a) and 10mm (b).

Why do you think it’s been previously thought that jawless vertebrates lacked the sympathetic nervous system?

Marianne: That’s easy to answer. We think people (including ourselves) were initially looking at the wrong time. In higher vertebrates, the sympathetic nervous system develops rather early in development, initiating when neural crest cells begin to coalesce around the dorsal aorta. We actually looked at comparable stages in lamprey and did not see the markers characteristic of sympathetic neurons co-expressed. However, when we looked at larvae at about 1 month of development, we observed not only sympathetic marker genes but also the transcription factors known to be involved in their specification. Thus, there was a heterochrony in terms of the time of differentiation.

Why did you choose the lamprey to answer your questions? 

Marianne: Lamprey are jawless vertebrates and have an important phylogenetic position at the base of the vertebrate tree of life. Lamprey fossils from the Cambrian period resemble modern lamprey in morphology. While we have no access to a “vertebrate ancestor” and lamprey have continued to evolve, they still are the closest approximation to what we think the ancestor may have looked liked.  

Can you summarise the key findings of the paper in a paragraph?

Marianne: In gnathostomes (jawed vertebrates), the neural crest gives rise to a fate-restricted sympathoadrenal progenitor from which sympathetic neurons of the autonomic nervous system arise. A transcriptional program including Ascl1, Phox2b, and Hand2 specifies neural crest towards sympathoadrenal fates, and also promotes catecholaminergic identity (i.e., expression of tyrosine hydroxylase and dopamine beta-hydroxylase enzymes). Upon maturation, these neural crest-derived sympathetic neurons will express various pan-neuronal genes, as well as genes specific for catecholaminergic function. While the earliest vertebrates, which lacked jaws, were historically believed to lack sympathetic neurons within the trunk, we found evidence of these cells in the jawless vertebrate sea lamprey. We found that the same core transcription factors involved in sympathoadrenal specification were co-expressed in cells throughout the trunk in lamprey, as were the catecholamine pathway enzymes. Later in larval stages, these cells upregulated expression of pan-neuronal markers. Lineage tracing indicated a conserved origin in the trunk neural crest and finally, RNA-sequencing analysis suggested a transcriptional profile that was consistent with sympathetic neuron identity. Altogether our findings challenge the prevailing dogma that the sympathetic ganglia are a gnathostome innovation. 

Were you surprised to find a rudimentary sympathetic nervous system in the lamprey?

Marianne: Yes indeed. We expected to see no sympathetic nervous system since that is what the literature says. It was a real surprise to see neurons in the right place with characteristics of sympathetic neurons.

How does the lamprey’s sympathetic nervous system differ from that in jawed vertebrates?

Marianne: There are many fewer neurons than seen in amniote embryos and no distinct ganglia. Just a few scattered cells all along the trunk region.

Ongoing proliferation of sympathoblasts in lamprey ammocetes: (a-c) HCR detection of Th (teal) and EdU staining (red) in ammocetes following an 8 hour EdU incubation. EdU detection in Th-expressing cells (indicated by arrowhead) reveals active division of sympathetic progenitors/neurons in lamprey trunk into ammocete stages. (d-g) Immunohistochemical detection of TH (teal) and EdU (red) co-expression in transverse sections of ammocetes following an 8 hour EdU incubation. Co-expression is denoted by arrowheads (n-p). DAPI is shown in white. Scale bars=50mm.

Brittany, were there any particular result or eureka moment that has stuck with you?

Brittany: Most of the experiments were performed on late-stage embryos and ammocetes that weren’t much larger, and as a result, a lot of our analyses documented sympathetic progenitors and immature neurons. To get a more mature population of sympathetic neurons for the final sequencing experiment, we actually had to source much larger, older ammocetes directly from the Great Lakes off-season. When they arrived at the lab, I was a bit shocked. They were so much larger than anything I was accustomed to working with, and I wasn’t sure if my tools were even appropriate for the dissections. The long and the short of it: the dissections were fine, but more importantly, the sympathetic trunks of these later-staged ammocetes were visibly discernible under the dissecting microscope. Of course we trusted our data from the late-stage embryos and the younger ammocetes, but I think it’s true that seeing is believing. 

And the flipside: any moments of frustration or despair?

Brittany: When it comes to experiments and data, I try to keep a level head and clear perspective. As scientists, we are after the truth, and every clear result (even the ones we didn’t want or expect) gets us closer to the truth. The scientific process really does work, and having trust in that goes a long way on more challenging days. 

What’s next for you, Brittany?

Brittany: Ultimately, I would like to be an independent investigator. I’m drawn to comparative embryology as a means to understand how peripheral sensory and autonomic neural systems first arose in vertebrates, and how genetic and environmental changes have driven diversification and adaptation of these systems over time. That’s a bit longer term, since I’ve just crossed the three-year mark as a postdoc, but in the meantime we have a collaboration with the Cai Lab at Caltech that I’ve been very excited about. We are looking to leverage their spatial barcoding technology, seqFISH, to better understand neuronal heterogeneity within the peripheral nervous system. Another endeavor I would like to mention is the work I’ve been doing with the support of the Caltech CTLO (Center for Teaching, Learning, and Outreach). One of my goals is to make hands-on science education more accessible to younger students, and with support from the CTLO and feedback from our local high school students, I have been developing grade-appropriate protocols and resources to introduce topics in embryology and neurobiology. 

And Marianne, where will this story take the lab?

Marianne: We are continuing to work on many different neural crest derivatives in lamprey and would like to understand whether the gene regulatory circuits resulting in neural crest differentiation into things like peripheral neurons, craniofacial structures, etc. are conserved to the base of vertebrates. Right now, we are particularly interested in the enteric nervous system and how it has become elaborated. 

(3 votes)
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I can’t believe it has been six months since I started this adventure as a group leader at the Center for Developmental Biology. Since then, few (but also lots of) things have happened.

One of the main things I would highlight is that the lab has grown. We are now four members!

• Andrea Theodorou, who studied her BSc and MSc at Newcastle University, focusing on thyroid cancer and 3D in vitro models of Hepatocellular Carcinoma. She joins the lab as a Research Technician and is already immersing herself in Seville’s culture!

• Irene Carrero Castro, who is completing her MSc in Omic Data Analysis and Systems Biology at the University of Seville. Her MSc thesis focuses on single-cell RNA-seq data analysis and she is being co-supervised by Dr. Fernando Casares and me.

• Grace Wang, who is studying Computational and Applied Math, Data Science and Statistics at Rice University. Since 2022, she has been working on computational and mathematical projects together with Prof. Aryeh Warmflash and me, which hopefully we will be able to announce soon!

Last week we had a very special moment, as we took our first lab picture! Although we missed Grace, as she is located at Rice University, it feels great to be able to show the world the great team that is behind the scenes working on exciting projects. I feel very fortunate to work with these hardworking and brilliant scientists and even better people, and I can’t wait to see what we achieve together. If you want more details about our lab, please have a look at our (also recently finalized) website: https://systemsdevbiolab.com/

We also published my postdoc’s main piece of work on how combinatorial interpretation of BMP and Wnt signals controls cell fate decisions in early human development. Rice University wrote a press release with a nice summary of our work, but if you are interested in more details, you can find our publication here.

Apart from that, these months have been incredibly busy, and I have been trying to understand how to balance all the responsibilities as a new PI. I had heard and partially seen before how many hats one must wear as a PI, but I didn’t fully grasp the meaning of it until I started to experience it myself.

One of the hats that I am the most inexperienced with and that I am learning how to wear is the one involving bureaucratic processes. Although I thought I had seen it all after being an immigrant in a few countries, it seems like there are always things to learn :-) Jokes aside, last month, for example, I learned the steps needed for hiring people in the lab and helping them settle when the candidates are not from Spain. Luckily, with the advice of great colleagues, it all went smoothly, and if anyone is interested, I have made a step-by-step protocol for next time, which I am happy to share. The next bureaucratic step is to learn how to import reagents from abroad; wish me luck!

Balancing these bureaucratic tasks with other responsibilities has been a learning curve. To deal with long to-do lists, I am currently reading a very interesting book called Four Thousand Weeks. Unlike other productivity books, it encourages prioritizing tasks and accepting that time is limited, rather than trying to fit an endless to-do list into a finite day. As my to-do list grows exponentially, I am working on reflecting on what each task would entail before saying yes, even if it initially might seem exciting.

Overall, despite the challenges, I am thrilled with the progress and the new connections I am making. I hope to share some exciting experimental results in my next update. Talk to you soon!

(2 votes)
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