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Morphogenesis is the process by which an organism, tissue or organ develops its shape. Morphogenesis is driven by various cellular and developmental processes including cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, cell migration and cell adhesion.
The mechanisms of bifurgation, a key step in thyroid development, are largely unknown. Here, Fang et al. find that HGF/Met is indispensable for the bifurgation of the thyroid primordium during zebrafish thyroid development.
Actomyosin networks constrict cell area and junctions to alter cell and tissue shape. Here, Li et al. reveal a morphological cell expansion wave behaviour that coordinates epithelial flattening and tissue elongation during Drosophila oogenesis.
A complex Nuclear Receptor Element (cNRE) of 32 base pairs that emerged from a viral infection drives the quail Slow Myosin Heavy Chain III (SMyHC III) promoter preferential expression to the atria.
The coordination of cellular behaviors is essential for proper organogenesis. Here the authors show that fruit development in Arabidopsis is governed by time-shifted differentiation gradients that act locally along two perpendicular organ axes.
Cell–cell adhesions are inevitably exposed to mechanical forces. A landmark paper by Yonemura et al. identified how tension alters molecular function of the cadherin adhesion apparatus. Its legacy lies in the many on-going efforts to understand how mechanical force is used in cell–cell communication.
Analysis of cells shed from the mouse gut, using bulk and single-cell transcriptomics, as well as single-molecule FISH and intravital imaging, revealed that shed cells are diverse, remain viable for a few hours and upregulate anti-microbial gene expression programs.
In this Tools of the Trade article, Sarah Paramore (from the Devenport and Nelson labs) discusses the use of mouse strains carrying genomic alterations in PCP genes and how they can increase our understanding of mammalian planar cell polarity.
