Interest in the ecology, biology and evolution of amphioxus is growing, and the availability of several species is helping to improve our understanding of chordate evolution.
Wnt/beta-catenin signaling is essential for the specification of dorsal cell fate in amphioxus, suggesting a common evolutionary origin for the formation of the dorsal organizer in chordates.
Filomena Caccavale, Giovanni Annona ... Salvatore D'Aniello
Previously undescribed morphogenetic and developmental mechanisms unravel that the cooperation of two ancient signaling pathways, nitric oxide and retinoic acid, is essential to build a chordate embryo.
The animal phylogeny of glutamate receptors indicates that vertebrate types do not account for all receptor classes originated during evolution, neither are they the pinnacle of a linear evolutive process.
Lars N Royall, Diana Machado ... Annina Denoth-Lippuner
Genetic birthdating in forebrain organoids shows asymmetric inheritance of centrosomes in human neural progenitor cells, required for proper human neurogenesis.
In response to ethanol stress, the yeast transcription factor Hsf1 forms nuclear condensates and drives the coalescence of target genes prior to their transcriptional activation while in response to thermal stress these three phenomena are tightly coordinated.
