Mesoderm articles from across Nature Portfolio

Development of hindlimbs and external genitalia share several regulatory factors. Lozovska et al. show that Tgfbr1 controls the response to those factors; embryos lacking Tgfbr1 develop two sets of hindlimbs at the expense of the external genitalia.

During somitogenesis, the dynamic oscillation of the molecular clock is converted into static spatial patterns. Here, the authors show that persistent suppression of Tbx6 expression triggered by periodical Ripply1/2 gene expression is a key to this conversion.

Somitoids and segmentoids—culture systems that recapitulate the formation of somite-like structures—reveal that an initial salt-and-pepper expression pattern of MESP2 in a newly formed segment is transformed into compartments of anterior and posterior identity through an active cell-sorting mechanism.

The zebrafish segmentation clock drives sequential segmentation of somites by periodically lowering double-phosphorylated Erk and therefore projecting its oscillation on the double-phosphorylated Erk gradient.

The plasma membrane’s electrical potential is maintained by ion channels, though the impact of this potential on cell fate has not been clearly elucidated. Here they show that changes in membrane potential can affect calcium levels and mTOR in pluripotent stem cells, altering their transition from pluripotency to differentiation.

How ribosomes differ in composition and function to regulate gene expression is poorly understood. Here, the authors show that ribosome composition changes during stem cell differentiation and identify a ribosomal protein that regulates production of the mesoderm lineage.

The endoderm layer destined to be primitive gut is a mosaic of earlier visceral endoderm and definitive endoderm that arises later, during gastrulation. Live imaging now reveals that in mouse embryos, definitive endoderm cells egress from underlying mesoderm and intercalate into the overlying cell layer. This process requires SOX17-mediated control of basement membrane organization.