Embryogenesis articles within Nature

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  • Article |

    Analysis of embryonic lethal and sub-viable mouse knockout lines reveals that ablation of many genes affects placental development, and that the occurrence of placental defects is co-associated with abnormal brain, heart and vascular system development.

    • Vicente Perez-Garcia
    • , Elena Fineberg
    •  & Myriam Hemberger

  • Letter |

    An improved assay for chromatin accessibility at single-cell resolution in Drosophila melanogaster embryos enables identification of developmental-stage- and cell-lineage-specific patterns of chromatin-level transcriptional regulation.

    • Darren A. Cusanovich
    • , James P. Reddington
    •  & Eileen E. M. Furlong

  • Letter |

    Two parallel signalling pathways, driven by Nodal and BMP, respectively integrate left- and right-handed information that drives heart looping and morphogenesis, and are conserved between zebrafish, chicken and mouse.

    • Oscar H. Ocaña
    • , Hakan Coskun
    •  & M. Angela Nieto

  • Letter |

    Whole-genome sequencing of normal blood cells sampled from 241 adults is used to infer mosaic point mutations that are likely to have arisen during early embryogenesis, providing insight into how early cellular dynamics may affect adult tissues.

    • Young Seok Ju
    • , Inigo Martincorena
    •  & Michael R. Stratton

  • Letter |

    The effects of genetic variation on transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation are systematically mapped across multiple stages of embryogenesis in eighty inbred Drosophila lines, identifying thousands of quantitative trait loci affecting approximately 17% of expressed genes, often with heteroalleic interactions.

    • Enrico Cannavò
    • , Nils Koelling
    •  & Eileen E. M. Furlong

  • Brief Communications Arising |

    • A. Sentürk
    • , S. Pfennig
    •  & A. Acker-Palmer

  • Letter |

    Inactivation of three Tet genes in mice leads to gastrulation phenotypes similar to those in embryos with increased Nodal signalling, revealing a functional redundancy of Tet genes and showing balanced and dynamic DNA methylation and demethylation is crucial to regulate key signalling pathways in early body plan formation.

    • Hai-Qiang Dai
    • , Bang-An Wang
    •  & Guo-Liang Xu

  • Letter |

    Three papers in this issue of Nature use highly sensitive ChIP–seq assays to describe the dynamic patterns of histone modifications during early mouse embryogenesis, showing that oocytes have a distinctive epigenome and providing insights into how the maternal gene expression program transitions to the zygotic program.

    • Bingjie Zhang
    • , Hui Zheng
    •  & Wei Xie

  • Letter |

    Three papers in this issue of Nature use highly sensitive ChIP–seq assays to describe the dynamic patterns of histone modifications during early mouse embryogenesis, showing that oocytes have a distinctive epigenome and providing insights into how the maternal gene expression program transitions to the zygotic program.

    • John Arne Dahl
    • , Inkyung Jung
    •  & Arne Klungland

  • Article |

    An improved ATAC-seq approach is used to describe a genome-wide view of accessible chromatin and cis-regulatory elements in mouse preimplantation embryos, allowing construction of a regulatory network of early development that helps to identify key modulators of lineage specification.

    • Jingyi Wu
    • , Bo Huang
    •  & Wei Xie

  • Letter |

    Embryos in a particular phylum of the animal kingdom tend to most resemble one another at a stage in the middle of embryogenesis known as the phylotypic period; a transcriptional analysis of embryogenesis from single embryos of ten different phyla reveals that the transcripts expressed at the phylotypic stage (or mid-developmental transition) differ greatly between phyla, and a ‘phylum’ may be defined as a set of species sharing the same signals and transcription factor networks during the mid-developmental transition.

    • Michal Levin
    • , Leon Anavy
    •  & Itai Yanai

  • Letter |

    It has been known for some time that limbs share at least some of their molecular patterning mechanism with external genitalia; here, this connection is examined in a variety of species, revealing that once-shared developmental trajectories could help to explain the observed patterning similarities.

    • Patrick Tschopp
    • , Emma Sherratt
    •  & Clifford J. Tabin

  • Letter |

    Base-resolution maps of DNA methylation in human gametes and early embryos offer novel insights into human methylation dynamics and the functional relationship between DNA methylation and gene expression.

    • Hongshan Guo
    • , Ping Zhu
    •  & Jie Qiao

  • Letter |

    The ubiquitin ligase RLIM is known to activate the long non-coding RNA Xist, which is crucial for X-chromosome inactivation in female mice; however, unlike imprinted X-chromosome inactivation that requires RLIM for Xist expression, evidence is now provided that during random X-chromosome inactivation Xist expression is regulated by an RLIM-independent pathway in vivo.

    • JongDae Shin
    • , Mary C. Wallingford
    •  & Ingolf Bach

  • Article |

    This study investigates how zygotic transcription is initiated and the maternal transcripts cleared in the zebrafish embryo: using loss-of-function analyses, high-throughput transcriptome sequencing and ribosome footprinting, the important roles of pluripotency factors Nanog, Pou5f1 and SoxB1 during these processes are identified.

    • Miler T. Lee
    • , Ashley R. Bonneau
    •  & Antonio J. Giraldez

  • Letter |

    A population of multipotent cardiopulmonary mesoderm progenitors (CPPs) within the posterior pole of the heart expresses Wnt2, Gli1 and Isl1; these CPPs arise from cardiac progenitors before lung development, generate the mesoderm lineages within the cardiac inflow tract and lung, and are regulated by hedgehog expression from the foregut endoderm.

    • Tien Peng
    • , Ying Tian
    •  & Edward E. Morrisey

  • Article |

    Reduced representation bisulphite sequencing is used to generate genome-scale DNA methylation maps in mouse gametes and several stages of early, pre-implantation embryogenesis, allowing a base-pair resolution timeline of the changes in DNA methylation during developmental transitions.

    • Zachary D. Smith
    • , Michelle M. Chan
    •  & Alexander Meissner

  • Letter |

    Double deficiency of FADD and RIPK1 is shown to rescue the defects in mouse embryonic development and lymphocyte proliferation that are characteristic for mice with single gene deficiencies. This work suggests that the activity of FADD (presumably in conjunction with caspase-8 and c-FLIP) is to keep necrosis in check by causing the cleavage of RIPK1.

    • Haibing Zhang
    • , Xiaohui Zhou
    •  & Jianke Zhang

  • Letter |

    Caspase-8 mediates apoptosis induced by death receptors. At the same time, this protease is able to prevent RIP-dependent necrosis. Without caspase-8 mice die during their embryonic development. Two papers now show that lethality is not caused by the absence of apoptosis, but by RIP3-dependent necrosis that is unleashed without caspase-8. Mice that lack both caspase-8 and RIP3 develop into viable, immunocompetent, fertile adult mice, but suffer from a progressive lymphoaccumulative disease similar to mice that lack the death receptor CD95.

    • William J. Kaiser
    • , Jason W. Upton
    •  & Edward S. Mocarski

  • Letter |

    Genetic imprinting, or the preferential expression of a single parental allele, has typically been implicated as an influential factor during development, but whether unequal representation of one allele can influence social behaviour has not been studied. Here, it is demonstrated that the adaptor protein Grb10 is predominantly expressed from the paternal allele in brain and that ablating this allelic bias induces behavioural modifications of a social nature. At this time, Grb10 is unique in the sense that tissue-specific actions of each parental allele can influence distinct physiological or behavioural processes.

    • Alastair S. Garfield
    • , Michael Cowley
    •  & Andrew Ward

  • Letter |

    Identifying the genomic regulatory sequences, such as enhancers, that control early embryonic development remains a difficult challenge. Here, profiling of histone modifications and chromatin regulators in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) reveals unique signatures that are used to identify over 2,000 putative enhancers. These enhancers are either active in the h ESCs or associated with early developmental genes.

    • Alvaro Rada-Iglesias
    • , Ruchi Bajpai
    •  & Joanna Wysocka

  • News & Views |

    Comparative genomics studies reveal molecular signatures of the controversial 'phylotypic' stage — a time when embryos of members of an animal phylum all look more alike than at other embryonic stages. See Letters p.811 & p.815

    • Benjamin Prud'homme
    •  & Nicolas Gompel

  • Letter |

    For two hundred years, scientists have noticed that the appearance of embryos in related species converge in their appearance mid-way in development, diverging thereafter. But is this 'phylotypic stage' real, and how is it connected with the genetic basis of development? Here, a method linking the genes transcribed at various stages of development (the transcriptome) with the evolutionary history of those genes is used. Genes transcribed in the phylotypic stage are, in evolutionary terms, the oldest and most conserved. This suggests that the phylotypic stage does represent the body plans of related species at their most unadorned, selection having sculpted the earlier and later stages of embryonic form to suit the particulars of each creature.

    • Alex T. Kalinka
    • , Karolina M. Varga
    •  & Pavel Tomancak

  • Letter |

    The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is made up of vascular endothelial cells and was thought to have formed postnatally from astrocytes. Two independent studies demonstrate that this barrier forms during embryogenesis, with pericyte/endothelial cell interactions being critical to regulate the BBB during development. A better understanding of the relationship among pericytes, neuroendothelial cells and astrocytes in BBB function will contribute to our understanding of BBB breakdown during central nervous system injury and disease.

    • Richard Daneman
    • , Lu Zhou
    •  & Ben A. Barres

  • News & Views |

    Hormones are not all-powerful in determining whether birds develop with male or female features. Chickens that are genetic sexual mosaics reveal that individual cells also have a say in the matter.

    • Lindsey A. Barske
    •  & Blanche Capel

  • Letter |

    One of two papers showing the generation of haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from the ventral wall of the dorsal aorta in live zebrafish embryos. Here, using imaging of live zebrafish, HSCs are shown to emerge directly from the aorta floor. This process does not involve cell division but movement of single endothelial cells out of the aorta ventral wall into the sub aortic space, where they transform into haematopoietic cells.

    • Karima Kissa
    •  & Philippe Herbomel

  • Letter |

    De novo emergence of phenotypically defined haematopoietic stem cells (Sca1+, c kit+, CD41+) directly from ventral aortic haemogenic endothelial cells is shown in mice. Although the study did not visualize live embryos, it instead developed a dissection procedure to visualize the deeply located aorta.

    • Jean-Charles Boisset
    • , Wiggert van Cappellen
    •  & Catherine Robin

  • Letter |

    Heterozygous mutations in the gene encoding CHD7, an ATP-dependent chromatin-remodelling protein, result in CHARGE syndrome — a disorder characterized by malformations of the craniofacial structures, peripheral nervous system, ears, eyes and heart. In humans and Xenopus, CHD7 is now shown to be essential for the formation of multipotent migratory neural crest and for activating the transcriptional circuitry of the neural crest; shedding light on the pathoembryology of CHARGE syndrome.

    • Ruchi Bajpai
    • , Denise A. Chen
    •  & Joanna Wysocka

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