Neurulation articles from across Nature Portfolio

Apical constriction is known to be critical for neural tube closure, but the signals that induce this process have not been fully characterized. Here Yoon et al. identify a signaling complex that instructs actomyosin contractions during apical constriction and show that it is required for neural tube closure.

Planar cell polarity (PCP) is critical for tissue-wide coordination and successful development. Here Jussila et al. generate a GFP-Vangl2 fusion for live imaging and discover a surprising directionality to the intercellular propagation of cell polarity, and ultimately link PCP defects with idiopathic scoliosis.

Synthetic mouse embryos assembled from embryonic stem cells, trophoblast stem cells and induced extraembryonic endoderm stem cells closely recapitulate the development of wild-type and mutant natural mouse embryos up to embryonic day 8.5.

Micropatterning generates the four ectodermal cell types of human neurulation.