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Mtss1 encodes an actin-binding protein, dysregulated in a variety of tumors, that interacts with sonic hedgehog/Gli signaling in epidermal cells. Given the prime importance of this pathway for cerebellar devel...
In recent years, considerable knowledge has been gained on the molecular mechanisms underlying retinal cell fate specification. However, hitherto studies focused primarily on the six major retinal cell classes...
Postnatal muscle growth is largely depending on the number and size of muscle fibers. The number of myofibers and to a large extent their metabolic and contractile properties, which also influence their size, ...
A sensitive, ubiquitously expressed tetracycline inducible system would be a valuable tool in mouse transgenesis. However, this has been difficult to obtain due to position effects observed at different chromo...
Blastomere injection of mRNA or antisense oligonucleotides has proven effective in analyzing early gene function in Xenopus. However, functional analysis of genes involved in neuronal differentiation and axon pat...
The organization of the different tissues of an animal requires mechanisms that regulate cell-cell adhesion to promote and maintain the physical separation of adjacent cell populations. In the Drosophila imaginal...
The Neuregulin family of ligands and their receptors, the Erbb tyrosine kinases, have important roles in epidermal and mammary gland development as well as during carcinogenesis. Previously, we demonstrated th...
Formation of haploid spermatozoa capable of fertilization requires proper programming of epigenetic information. Exactly how DNMT3L (DNA methyltransferase 3-Like), a postulated regulator of DNA methyltransfera...
The neural retina is a highly structured tissue of the central nervous system that is formed by seven different cell types that are arranged in layers. Despite much effort, the genetic mechanisms that underlie...
Based on inhibition tests, the alpha6beta1 integrin was suggested to be a sperm receptor, but further experiments using gene deletion techniques have shown that neither oocyte alpha6, nor beta1 integrin subuni...
Heterorhabditis bacteriophora is applied throughout the world for the biological control of insects and is an animal model to study interspecies interactions, e.g. mutualism, parasitism and vector-borne disease.
Comparative genomics is currently one of the most popular approaches to study the regulatory architecture of vertebrate genomes. Fish-mammal genomic comparisons have proved powerful in identifying conserved no...
Dmrt1 is a highly conserved gene involved in the determination and early differentiation phase of the primordial gonad in vertebrates. In the fish medaka dmrt1bY, a functional duplicate of the autosomal dmrt1a ge...
Although originally identified as embryonic axon guidance cues, semaphorins are now known to regulate multiple, distinct, processes crucial for neuronal network formation including axon growth and branching, d...
GATA-2 is a transcription factor required for hematopoietic stem cell survival as well as for neuronal development in vertebrates. It has been shown that specific expression of GATA-2 in blood progenitor cells re...
Reciprocal interactions between two extra-embryonic tissues, the extra-embryonic ectoderm and the visceral endoderm, and the pluripotent epiblast, are required for the establishment of anterior-posterior polar...
The muscle fiber number and fiber composition of muscle is largely determined during prenatal development. In order to discover genes that are involved in determining adult muscle phenotypes, we studied the ge...
Thyroid hormones (THs) are vital in the maintenance of homeostasis and in the control of development. One postembryonic developmental process that is principally regulated by THs is amphibian metamorphosis. Th...
Glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) encodes a serine/threonine protein kinase, is known to play roles in many biological processes. Two closely related GSK3 isoforms encoded by distinct genes: GSK3α (51 kDa) and...
The embryonic definitive endoderm (DE) gives rise to organs of the gastrointestinal and respiratory tract including the liver, pancreas and epithelia of the lung and colon. Understanding how DE progenitor cell...
Chick definitive endoderm is an important source of signals that pattern the early embryo forming a central structure around which the body plan is constructed. Although the origin of definitive endoderm has b...
Oocyte developmental competence is highly affected by the phase of ovarian follicular wave. Previous studies have shown that oocytes from subordinate follicles recovered at growth phase (day 3 after estrus) ar...
The intermediate filament Nestin has been reported as a marker for stem cells and specific precursor cell populations in the developing mammalian central nervous system (CNS). Nestin expressing precursors may ...
lin-4 and let-7, the two founding members of heterochronic microRNA genes, are firstly confirmed in Caenorhabditis elegans to control the proper timing of developmental programs in a heterochronic pathway. let-7 ...
The vast majority of oocytes formed in the fetal ovary do not survive beyond birth. Possible reasons for their loss include the elimination of non-viable genetic constitutions arising through meiosis, however,...
Understanding how lineage choices are made during embryonic stem (ES) cell differentiation is critical for harnessing strategies for controlled production of therapeutic somatic cell types for cell transplanta...
Pbx genes encode TALE class homeodomain transcription factors that pattern the developing neural tube, pancreas, and blood. Within the hindbrain, Pbx cooperates with Hox proteins to regulate rhombomere segment id...
Alternative promoters usage is an important paradigm in transcriptional control of mammalian gene expression. However, despite the growing interest in alternative promoters and their role in genome diversifica...
The vertebrate adult axial skeleton, trunk and limb skeletal muscles and dermis of the back all arise from early embryonic structures called somites. Somites are symmetrically positioned flanking the embryo ax...
Programmed cell death is used to remove excess cells between ommatidia in the Drosophila pupal retina. This death is required to establish the crystalline, hexagonal packing of ommatidia that characterizes the ad...
The Kit gene encodes a receptor tyrosine kinase involved in various biological processes including melanogenesis, hematopoiesis and gametogenesis in mice and human. A large number of Kit mutants has been describe...
Three types of cell lines have been established from mouse blastocysts: embryonic stem (ES) cells, trophoblast stem (TS) cells, and extra-embryonic endoderm (XEN) cells, which have the potential to differentia...
Hematopoietic development in vertebrate embryos results from the sequential contribution of two pools of precursors independently generated. While intra-embryonic precursors harbour the features of hematopoiet...
Histone deacetylases (HDACs) play a major role in the regulation of gene transcription, often leading to transcriptional repression, as well as other effects following deacetylation of non-histone proteins.
In the CNS, several P2 receptors for extracellular nucleotides are identified on neurons and glial cells to participate to neuron-neuron, glia-glia and glia-neuron communication.
The midgut undergoes histolysis and remodeling during the larval to adult transition in holometabolous insects, but the molecular mechanisms underlying this process are not well understood.
Little is known about the control of the development of vertebrate unpaired appendages such as the caudal fin, one of the key morphological specializations of fishes. Recent analysis of lamprey and dogshark me...
Protein Kinase D (PKD) is an effector of diacylglycerol-regulated signaling pathways. Three isoforms are known in mammals that have been linked to diverse cellular functions including regulation of cell prolif...
Larval molting and metamorphosis are important physiological processes in the life cycle of the holometabolous insect. We used suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) to identify genes differentially expre...
At fertilisation, mammalian oocytes are activated by oscillations of intracellular Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i). Phospholipase Cζ, which is introduced by fertilising spermatozoon, triggers [Ca2+]i oscillations through the gene...
Flatfish metamorphosis is a thyroid hormone (TH) driven process which leads to a dramatic change from a symmetrical larva to an asymmetrical juvenile. The effect of THs on muscle and in particular muscle sarco...
In honeybees, differential feeding of female larvae promotes the occurrence of two different phenotypes, a queen and a worker, from identical genotypes, through incremental alterations, which affect general gr...
Thymic epithelial cells (TECs) promote thymocyte maturation and are required for the early stages of thymocyte development and for positive selection. However, investigation of the mechanisms by which TECs per...
Expression of the mouse Delta-like 1 (Dll1) gene in the presomitic mesoderm and in the caudal halves of somites of the developing embryo is required for the formation of epithelial somites and for the maintenance...
Ovarian folliculogenesis in mammals is a complex process involving interactions between germ and somatic cells. Carefully orchestrated expression of transcription factors, cell adhesion molecules and growth fa...
Combining microarray results and biological pathway information will add insight into biological processes. Pathway information is widely available in databases through the internet.
Fibre type specification is a poorly understood process beginning in embryogenesis in which skeletal muscle myotubes switch myosin-type to establish fast, slow and mixed fibre muscle groups with distinct funct...
Normal preimplantation embryo development encompasses a series of events including first cleavage division, activation of the embryonic genome, compaction and blastocyst formation.
Genetic studies have shown that formation of pancreatic endocrine cells in mice is dependent on the cell autonomous action of the bHLH transcription factor Neurogenin3 and that the extent and timing of endocri...
Fibroblast Growth Factors (FGFs) represent a large family of secreted proteins that are required for proper development and physiological processes. Mutations in mouse and zebrafish FGFs result in abnormal emb...
