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The July 2004 issue of Nature Reviews Genetics contains a special focus on organogenesis. This is a follow-up to our 2002 Organogenesis special issue which featured articles on early liver specification, pancreatic stem-cell identity, heart patterning, tubulogenesis and kidney development. This time, we focus on three different anatomical systems in mammals - teeth, ears and reproductive organs.
These three fields have benefited enormously from comparative studies - from mice to fish to turtles - and not least from advances in genetic techniques, such as conditional gene manipulation, and technological innovations, such as expression profiling and improved organ culture systems. Owing to this combination of efforts, developmental biologists can now deconstruct organogenesis into individual steps, each of which involves genetic changes that control not only cell identity, but also other cellular properties, such as shape, adhesion and polarity.
The reviews in this special web focus are complemented by a selection of relevant reviews and highlights that have already appeared in Nature Reviews Genetics, as well as recent related research articles, reviews and commentaries from other journals in the Nature Publishing Group.
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