Although retinoic acid (RA) signaling plays a crucial role in the body patterning of chordates, its function in non-chordate invertebrates, other than its mediation of environmental cues triggering metamorphos...
Authors: Shumpei Yamakawa, Yoshiaki Morino, Masanao Honda and Hiroshi Wada
Sall (Spalt-like) proteins are zinc-finger transcription factors involved in a number of biological processes. They have only been studied in a few model organisms, such as Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis...
Authors: José Lorente-Sorolla, Marta Truchado-Garcia, Kimberly J. Perry, Jonathan Q. Henry and Cristina Grande
The basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) family of transcription factors is one of the largest superfamilies of regulatory transcription factors and is widely used in eukaryotic organisms. They play an essential role...
Authors: E. Perea-Atienza, S. G. Sprecher and P. Martínez
Understanding the general trends in developmental changes during animal evolution, which are often associated with morphological diversification, has long been a central issue in evolutionary developmental bio...
Current studies in evolutionary developmental biology are focused on the reconstruction of gene regulatory networks in target animal species. From decades, the scientific interest on genetic mechanisms orchest...
Authors: Evgeniya Anishchenko, Maria Ina Arnone and Salvatore D’Aniello
The axonal projection from the retina to the optic tectum maps visual information isomorphically from one to the other and serves as a model for the development of sensory maps more generally in the vertebrate...
The notochord has organizer properties and is required for floor plate induction and dorsoventral patterning of the neural tube. This activity has been attributed to sonic hedgehog (shh) signaling, which origi...
Authors: Stanislav Kremnyov, Kristine Henningfeld, Christoph Viebahn and Nikoloz Tsikolia
Previous analysis suggested that the relative contribution of individual bones to regional skull lengths differ between inbred mouse strains. If the negative correlation of adjacent bone lengths is associated...
Authors: Christopher J. Percival, Rebecca Green, Charles C. Roseman, Daniel M. Gatti, Judith L. Morgan, Stephen A. Murray, Leah Rae Donahue, Jessica M. Mayeux, K. Michael Pollard, Kunjie Hua, Daniel Pomp, Ralph Marcucio and Benedikt Hallgrímsson
ETCHbox genes are eutherian-specific homeobox genes expressed during preimplantation development at a time when the first cell lineage decisions are being made. The mouse has an unusual repertoire of ETCHbox g...
Authors: Amy H. Royall, Ignacio Maeso, Thomas L. Dunwell and Peter W. H. Holland
The anterior neuroectoderm (ANE) in many deuterostome embryos (echinoderms, hemichordates, urochordates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates) is progressively restricted along the anterior–posterior axis to a do...
Authors: Anita Khadka, Marina Martínez-Bartolomé, Stephanie D. Burr and Ryan C. Range
The development of male- or female-specific phenotypes in squamates is typically controlled by either temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) or chromosome-based genetic sex determination (GSD). However,...
Authors: Sarah L. Whiteley, Clare E. Holleley, Wendy A. Ruscoe, Meghan Castelli, Darryl L. Whitehead, Juan Lei, Arthur Georges and Vera Weisbecker
Batoids exhibit unique body plans with derived fin morphologies, such as the anteriorly expanded pectoral fins that fuse to the head, or distally extended anterior pelvic fin lobes used for a modified swimming...
Life in the darkness of caves is accompanied, throughout phyla, by striking phenotypic changes including the loss or severe reduction in eyes and pigmentation. On the other hand, cave animals have undergone co...
Authors: Victor Simon, Romain Elleboode, Kélig Mahé, Laurent Legendre, Patricia Ornelas-Garcia, Luis Espinasa and Sylvie Rétaux
The model Aquilegia coerulea x “Origami” possesses several interesting floral features, including petaloid sepals that are morphologically distinct from the true petals and a broad domain containing many whorls o...
The evolution of tetrapod limbs from paired fins has long been of interest to both evolutionary and developmental biologists. Several recent investigative tracks have converged to restructure hypotheses in thi...
Authors: Thomas A. Stewart, Ramray Bhat and Stuart A. Newman
Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) are of central importance for dorsal–ventral (DV) axis specification. They are core components of a signalling cascade that includes the BMP ligand decapentaplegic (DPP) and ...
Authors: Karl R. Wotton, Anna Alcaine-Colet, Johannes Jaeger and Eva Jiménez-Guri
Nemertean embryos undergo equal spiral cleavage, and prior fate-mapping studies showed that some also exhibit key aspects of spiralian lineage-based fate specification, including specification of the primary t...
Authors: George von Dassow and Svetlana A. Maslakova
There have been few studies of head patterning in non-insect arthropods, and even in the insects, much is not yet understood. In the fly Drosophila three head gap genes, orthodenticle (otd), buttonhead (btd) and
Heterochronic shifts during mid- to late stages of organismal development have been proposed as key mechanisms generating phenotypic diversity. To determine whether late heterochronic shifts underlie derived f...
Authors: Jamie L. Kostyun, Jill C. Preston and Leonie C. Moyle
Hemiptera is a large clade of insects understudied in terms of developmental biology. Halyomorpha halys, the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB, referred to throughout as H. halys), is an invasive hemipteran pest o...
Authors: Yong Lu, Mengyao Chen, Katie Reding and Leslie Pick
The free-living nematode Diploscapter coronatus is the closest known relative of Caenorhabditis elegans with parthenogenetic reproduction. It shows several developmental idiosyncracies, for example concerning the...
Authors: Christopher Kraus, Philipp H. Schiffer, Hiroshi Kagoshima, Hideaki Hiraki, Theresa Vogt, Michael Kroiher, Yuji Kohara and Einhard Schierenberg
Pax genes are a family of conserved transcription factors that regulate many aspects of developmental morphogenesis, notably the development of ectodermal sensory structures including ...
How nervous systems evolved remains an unresolved question. Previous studies in vertebrates and arthropods revealed that homologous genes regulate important neurogenic processes such as cell proliferation and ...
Authors: Abhinav Sur, Craig R. Magie, Elaine C. Seaver and Néva P. Meyer
The evolutionary emergence and diversification of the chordates appear to involve dramatic changes in organ morphogenesis along the left/right axis. However, the ancestral chordate mechanism for establishing l...
Analyzing close species with diverse developmental modes is instrumental for investigating the evolutionary significance of physiological, anatomical and behavioral features at a molecular level. Many examples...
Authors: Claudia Racioppi, Maria Carmen Valoroso, Ugo Coppola, Elijah K. Lowe, C. Titus Brown, Billie J. Swalla, Lionel Christiaen, Alberto Stolfi and Filomena Ristoratore
