Selective activation of FZD7 signaling with an engineered WNT mimetic promotes early developmental programs, including endodermal lineage specification, in human pluripotent stem cells.
Micropatterned differentiation of human ESCs generates gastrulation cell types – germ layers, extraembryonic, and primordial germ cells with primate characteristics – that show conserved sorting behaviors when dissociated and reseeded as single-cell mixture.
Imprinted gene expression is set up during a critical window of early embryonic development, by the translation of parental imprints by oocyte-supplied Smchd1 into allele-specific gene silencing.
A mechanistic basis is provided for the regulative ability of the mammalian embryo offering a long-sought explanation for coordinating cell behaviors at the population level ensuring robustness in developmental outcome.
A combination of window-of-sensitivity, genetic, and in vitro findings illuminate mechanisms of gene–environment interaction in a multifactorial model of a common birth defect.
During vertebrate axial extension, the tail bud originates from the activation of a developmental module in a subset of axial progenitors, concurrent but different to gastrulation.
Genetic and molecular analyses show that FOXC1 and FOXC2 play a role in controlling lymphatic valve maintenance as key mediators of mechanotransduction to control cytoskeletal organization and RhoA/ROCK signaling.
Easy-to-use image analysis software enables single cell quantitation of cell types and division rates in complex 3D tissues including living Drosophila brains, mouse embryos and Zebrafish organoids.
Regulation of cellular properties such as ligand secretion and migratory ability through changes in the cytoskeleton mediated by a Wnt5a–Ror2–Vangl2 axis is a major determinant of alveolar formation.
