Table of Contents
EDITORIAL
- Human development: recent progress and future prospects
Summary: Our second Special Issue on human development highlights recent progress in this field, new technologies that have contributed to this progress and some of the ethical issues to consider.
SPOTLIGHTS
- Gene editing in human development: ethical concerns and practical applications
Summary: This Spotlight summarizes some of the ethical considerations associated with the use of gene-editing techniques in human embryos and embryo-like entities, highlighting the need for open and informed debate.
- On the origin of the human germline
Summary: This Spotlight discusses the use of new in vitro models to study the origin of human primordial germ cells, prompting further consideration of the somatic cell fate decisions that occur during early human development.
- Developmentally inspired human ‘organs on chips’
Summary: This Spotlight discusses the central role that developmental biology played in the early stages of organ-chip technology development and how such technology has provided insights into human physiology and disease mechanisms.
REVIEW
- Human lung development: recent progress and new challenges
Summary: This Review describes how recent technological advances have shed light on the mechanisms underlying human lung development and disease, and outlines the future challenges in this field.
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
- Single-cell analysis of progenitor cell dynamics and lineage specification in the human fetal kidney
Summary: New markers for specific cell types in the developing human kidney are identified and computational approaches infer developmental trajectories and interrogate the complex network of signaling pathways and cellular transitions.
- Modeling human somite development and fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva with induced pluripotent stem cells
Summary: Protocols for the differentiation of human iPSCs to somite derivatives (myotome, sclerotome, syndetome and dermatome) are developed and applied to the modeling of the bone disease fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva.
- Understanding human fetal pancreas development using subpopulation sorting, RNA sequencing and single-cell profiling
Summary: This study develops sorting strategies to isolate specific pancreatic populations and use single-cell profiling to evaluate whether pancreatic cells derived from hPSCs mirror the process occurring in human fetuses.
- Dynamic regulation of NOTCH1 activation and Notch ligand expression in human thymus development
Summary: Here, through immunohistochemistry and quantitative confocal microscopy of fetal, postnatal and adult thymus, we show that spatiotemporal regulation of Notch ligand expression in the human thymus controls niche-specific NOTCH1 signals required for dynamic T-cell development.
- Three-dimensional induction of dorsal, intermediate and ventral spinal cord tissues from human pluripotent stem cells
Summary: The three-dimensional induction of dorsal, intermediate and ventral spinal cord-like tissues from human pluripotent stem cells described provides a useful experimental tool for studying human spinal cord development.
- Neural differentiation, selection and transcriptomic profiling of human neuromesodermal progenitor-like cells in vitro
Summary: The first transcriptome profiling of human neuromesodermal progenitor-like cells, generation of human spinal cord progenitors from these cells and a GFP-reporter for Nkx1.2 in human embryonic stem cells.
- Integrin α2 marks a niche of trophoblast progenitor cells in first trimester human placenta
Summary: ITGA2 marks a proliferative trophoblast progenitor compartment in first trimester human placenta that appears to be regulated by NOTCH signalling and exhibits a unique combination of epithelial and mesenchymal expression characteristics.
- Distinct prophase arrest mechanisms in human male meiosis
Summary: Histological examination and transcriptomic analysis of human meiosis-arrested spermatocytes reveals two prophase arrest mechanisms, each associated with distinct gene expression profiles implicating the involvement of different biological processes.
This issue
Other journals from The Company of Biologists
The people behind the papers – Elena Popa and Abigail Tucker
“After what felt like hundreds of failed attempts, finally being able to see Sox2 staining under the microscope felt like a huge relief!”
First author Elena Popa and Abigail Tucker, Professor of Development and Evolution at King's College London, talk about their research into tooth development in the mouse and other organisms.
Matt Porteus (right) and Robin Lovell-Badge (left) clarify some statements made by He Jiankui. Courtesy of Vivian Tam (School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Hong Kong)
Robin Lovell-Badge gives his perspective on the recent report from Jiankui He of the world's first genome edited babies and discusses if and how clinical applications of germline genome editing in humans may be justifiable.
Developmental biology for agriculture
In the latest Spotlight for our Advocacy series, Scott Boden and Lars Østergaard argue that technological advances in sequencing, genome editing and advanced data processing should allow developmental biologists to improve crop performance as crop yields come under pressure to meet the growing human population's needs.
Demonstrating some of these principles in a new Research Article, Laura Dixon and team analyse the flowering and growth responses of a range of wheat cultivars to warmer growth temperatures.
A new Instagram account for Development
Our new Instagram account promotes the beauty of developmental biology through the work of our authors. Do join us there!
Workshop - New frontiers in the brain: unexpected roles of the choroid plexus-cerebrospinal fluid system in health and disease
Development is pleased to welcome submissions for an upcoming Special Issue on ‘Chromatin and Epigenetics’, edited by Benoit Bruneau, Haruhiko Koseki, Susan Strome and Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla. This special issue aims to showcase the best research covering the chromatin-based and epigenetic mechanisms which regulate development across the plant and animal kingdoms. Submission deadline: 31 March 2019.
PreLights – A direct and widespread role for the nuclear receptor EcR in mediating the response to ecdysone in Drosophila
Extensive and dynamic genome binding by a steroid hormone receptor highlights the interconnection between systemic and local cues for organ development, shows a preprint written by Christopher Uyehara and Daniel McKay and highlighted by Natalie Dye.
Catch up with other recent preLights selected for the developmental biology community.
Articles of interest in our sister journals
Wnt signaling in orofacial clefts: crosstalk, pathogenesis and models
Kurt Reynolds, Priyanka Kumari, Lessly Sepulveda Rincon, Ran Gu, Yu Ji, Santosh Kumar, Chengji J. Zhou
Disease Models & Mechanisms 2019 12: dmm037051
Loss of the deglutamylase CCP5 perturbs multiple steps of spermatogenesis and leads to male infertility
Tiziana Giordano, Sudarshan Gadadhar, Satish Bodakuntla, et al.
J Cell Sci 2019 132: jcs226951