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Salamanders regenerate their tails after amputation anywhere along their length. How the system faithfully reconstitutes the original number of segments and length is not yet known.
Biliary atresia (BA) is a human infant disease with inflammatory fibrous obstructions in the bile ducts and is the most common cause for pediatric liver transplantation. In contrast, the sea lamprey undergoes ...
Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy performed via 3D structured illumination microscopy (3D-SIM) is well established on flat, adherent cells. However, blastomeres of mammalian embryos are non-adherent, ro...
The endogenous ability to dedifferentiate, re-pattern, and re-differentiate adult cells to repair or replace damaged or missing structures is exclusive to only a few tetrapod species. The Mexican axolotl is on...
Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells (MSCs) define a population of progenitor cells capable of giving rises to at least three mesodermal lineages in vitro, the chondrocytes, osteoblasts and adipocytes. The validity ...
Acute kidney injury in mammals, which is caused by cardiovascular diseases or the administration of antibiotics with nephrotoxic side-effects is a life-threatening disease, since loss of nephrons is irreversib...
The investigation of skeletal muscle development is of importance in stock farming and biomedicine. It is still ambiguous that whether animals are born with the full set of skeletal muscle fibers or if the num...
An intricate gene regulatory network drives neural crest migration and differentiation. How epigenetic regulators contribute to this process is just starting to be understood.
TALE-class homeodomain transcription factors Meis and Pbx play important roles in formation of the embryonic brain, eye, heart, cartilage or hematopoiesis. Loss-of-function studies of Pbx1, 2 and 3 and Meis1 d...
Components of the limb musculoskeletal system have distinct mesoderm origins. Limb skeletal muscles originate from somites, while the skeleton and attachments (tendons and connective tissues) derive from limb ...
The GATA-binding factor 6 (Gata6) gene encodes a zinc finger transcription factor that often functions as a key regulator of lineage specification during development. It is the earliest known marker of the primit...
Primitive endoderm is a cell lineage segregated from the epiblast in the blastocyst and gives rise to parietal and visceral endoderm. Sox7 is a member of the SoxF gene family that is specifically expressed in pri...
Development of the valves and septa of the heart depends on the formation and remodeling of the endocardial cushions in the atrioventricular canal and outflow tract. These cushions are populated by mesenchyme ...
Pluripotent cells are present in early embryos until the levels of the pluripotency regulator Oct4 drop at the beginning of somitogenesis. Elevating Oct4 levels in explanted post-pluripotent cells in vitro res...
Sex determination in mammals requires expression of the Y-linked gene Sry in the bipotential genital ridges of the XY embryo. Even minor delay of the onset of Sry expression can result in XY sex reversal, highlig...
In multiple vertebrate organisms, including chick, Xenopus, and zebrafish, Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF) and Wnt signaling cooperate during formation of the otic placode. However, in the mouse, although FGF sign...
Recent studies have identified epithelial stem and progenitor cell populations of the lung. We are just beginning to understand the mechanisms that regulate their homeostatic, regenerative and maladaptive beha...
It remains unclear to what extent midgut rotation determines human intestinal topography and pathology. We reinvestigated the midgut during its looping and herniation phases of development, using novel 3D visu...
Nearly half of all individuals with Down Syndrome (DS) have some type of congenital heart defect (CHD), suggesting that DS sensitizes to CHD but does not cause it. We used a common mouse model of DS, the Ts65D...
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has many advantages in the research of in vivo embryonic brain development, specifically its noninvasive aspects and ability to avoid skeletal interference. However, few studie...
The 39 mammalian Hox genes show problematic patterns of functional overlap. In order to more fully define the developmental roles of Hox genes it is necessary to remove multiple combinations of paralogous and ...
Haploinsufficiency of the FOXL2 transcription factor in humans causes Blepharophimosis/Ptosis/Epicanthus Inversus syndrome (BPES), characterized by eyelid anomalies and premature ovarian failure. Mice lacking Fox...
During the fourth larval (L4) stage, vulval cells of C. elegans undergo extensive morphogenesis accompanied by changes in gene expression. This phase of vulval development, occurring after the well-studied induct...
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that act as post-transcriptional regulators of gene targets. Accurate quantification of miRNA expression using validated internal controls should aid in the understa...
Adult echinoderms can completely regenerate major parts of their central nervous system even after severe injuries. Even though this capacity has long been known, the molecular mechanisms that drive fast and c...
HP1γ, a well-known regulator of gene expression, has been recently identified to be a target of Aurora A, a mitotic kinase which is important for both gametogenesis and embryogenesis. The purpose of this study...
Despite extensive knowledge on bivalve anatomy and development, the formation and differentiation of the mantle margin and its associated organs remain largely unclear. Bivalves from the family Pectinidae (sca...
The mouse embryonic mandible comprises two types of tooth primordia in the cheek region: progressive tooth primordia of prospective functional teeth and rudimentary tooth primordia in premolar region – MS and ...
Endothelial or epithelial cellular branching is vital in development and cancer progression; however, the molecular mechanisms of these processes are not clear. In Drosophila, terminal cell at the end of some tra...
The ability to visualise the expression of individual genes in situ is an invaluable tool for developmental and evolutionary biologists; it allows for the characterisation of gene function, gene regulation and th...
The developing eye receives blood supply from two vascular systems, the intraocular hyaloid system and the superficial choroidal vessels. In zebrafish, a highly stereotypic and simple set of vessels develops o...
Butterfly wing color patterns emerge as the result of a regular arrangement of scales produced by epithelial scale cells at the pupal stage. These color patterns and scale arrangements are coordinated througho...
Marsupials such as the tammar wallaby (M.Eugenii) have a short gestation (29.3 days) and at birth the altricial young resembles a fetus, and the major development occurs postnatally while the young remains in the...
There is increasing evidence of a pivotal role for regulated mRNA translation in control of developmental cell fate transitions. Physiological and pathological stem and progenitor cell self-renewal is maintain...
Human dental pulp represents a suitable alternative source of stem cells for the purpose of cell-based therapies in regenerative medicine, because it is relatively easy to obtain it, using low invasive procedu...
In mammals, maternal differentially methylated regions (DMRs) acquire DNA methylation during the postnatal growth stage of oogenesis, with paternal DMRs acquiring DNA methylation in the perinatal prospermatago...
Central American crater lake cichlid fish of the Midas species complex (Amphilophus spp.) are a model system for sympatric speciation and fast ecological diversification and specialization. Midas cichlids have be...
Drosophila larvae have been used as a model to study to genetic and cellular circuitries modulating behaviors. One of the challenges in behavioral study is the quantification of complex phenoty...
Tissue fixation is crucial for preserving the morphology of biological structures and cytological details to prevent postmortem degradation and autolysis. Improper fixation conditions could lead to artifacts a...
Primary cilia are essential for Hedgehog (Hh) signal transduction in vertebrates. Although the core components of the Hh pathway are highly conserved, the dependency on cilia in Hh signaling is considered to b...
Stem cells can respond to environmental and physiological inputs to adaptively remodel tissues. Little is known about whether stem cell niches are similarly responsive. The Drosophila ovary germline stem cell (GS...
Alveoli, the milk-producing units of the mammary gland, are generated during pregnancy by collaboration of different epithelial cell types. We present the first analysis of transcriptional changes within the h...
We have revealed that the type II diacylglycerol kinases (DGKs) δ, η and κ were expressed in the testis and ovary. However, these enzymes’ functions in the reproductive organs remain unknown.
The editors of BMC Developmental Biology would like to thank all our reviewers who have contributed to the journal in Volume 14 (2014).
In society, there is a clear need to improve the success rate of techniques to restore fertility. Therefore a deeper knowledge of the dynamics of the complex molecular environment that regulates human gametoge...
Dietary interventions during pregnancy alter offspring fitness. We have shown mouse maternal low protein diet fed exclusively for the preimplantation period (Emb-LPD) before return to normal protein diet (NPD)...
Planarians are an attractive model organism for studying stem cell-based regeneration due to their ability to replace all of their tissues from a population of adult stem cells. The molecular toolkit for plana...
Bioelectric phenomena have been found to exert influence on various developmental and regenerative processes. Little is known about their possible functions and the cellular mechanisms by which they might act ...
Zebrafish are able to regenerate many of its tissues and organs after damage. In amphibians this process is regulated by nerve fibres present at the site of injury, which have been proposed to release factors ...
Mapping of tissue structure at the cellular, circuit, and organ-wide scale is important for understanding physiological and biological functions. A bio-electrochemical technique known as CLARITY used for three...
