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The formation and maintenance of the finite mammalian ovarian reserve are critical for fertility and species survival. Genetic and developmental studies have uncovered various mechanisms underlying oocyte development …

Signaling pathways induce stereotyped transcriptional changes as stem cells progress into mature cell types during embryogenesis. Signaling perturbations are necessary to discover which genes are responsive or insensitive …

The highly conserved extracellular signal–regulated kinase (ERK) regulates diverse cellular processes by phosphorylating a wide range of intracellular substrates. Its catalytic activity relies on phosphorylation by a …

The first cell fate bifurcation in mammalian development directs cells toward either the trophectoderm (TE) or inner cell mass (ICM) compartments in pre-implantation embryos. This decision is …

Studies in Drosophila have contributed a great deal to our understanding of developmental mechanisms. Indeed, familiar names of critical signaling components, such as Hedgehog and Notch, have their …

A lack of tools for detecting receptor activity in vivo has limited our ability to fully explore receptor-level control of developmental patterning. Here, we extend phospho-tyrosine …

This work probes the role of cell geometry in orienting self-organized fluid flows in the late-stage Drosophila oocyte. Recent theoretical work has shown that a model …

Germline-soma segregation is crucial for fertility. Primordial germ cells (PGCs) arise early in development and are the very first cells to form in the Drosophila embryo. At …

Tissue deformations during morphogenesis can be active, driven by internal processes, or passive, resulting from stresses applied at their boundaries. Here, we introduce the Drosophila hindgut primordium as …

A lack of tools for detecting receptor activity in vivo has limited our ability to fully explore receptor-level control of developmental patterning. Here, we extend a new …

Learning in living organisms is typically associated with networks of neurons. The use of large numbers of adjustable units has also been a crucial factor in the continued …

Gametes in many species develop in cysts—clusters of germ cells formed by incomplete cytokinesis—that remain connected through intercellular bridges (ICBs). These connections enable sharing of cytoplasmic …

Extracellular-signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling controls development and homeostasis and is genetically deregulated in human diseases, including neurocognitive disorders and cancers. Although the list of ERK functions …

Studies in Drosophila were essential in delineating the highly conserved RAS signaling pathway. Indeed, some pathway components, such as Son of sevenless or Corkscrew, were named after mutant …

Gastrulation is a critical process during embryonic development that transforms a single-layered blastula into a multilayered embryo with distinct germ layers, which eventually give rise to all …

For investigations into fate specification and morphogenesis in time-lapse images of preimplantation embryos, automated 3D instance segmentation and tracking of nuclei are invaluable. Low signal-to-noise …

Habituation—a phenomenon in which a dynamical system exhibits a diminishing response to repeated stimulations that eventually recovers when the stimulus is withheld—is universally observed in living …

The terminal cells of the Drosophila larval tracheal system are perhaps the simplest delivery networks, providing an analogue for mammalian vascular growth and function in a system with …

Large cells often rely on cytoplasmic flows for intracellular transport, maintaining homeostasis, and positioning cellular components. Understanding the mechanisms of these flows is essential for gaining insights into …

The receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK)/Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase (ERK) signaling pathway controls cell proliferation, differentiation, and survival. How ERK activation is relayed to its phosphorylation targets is …

In the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, two cells in a cyst of 16 interconnected cells have the potential to become the oocyte, but only one of these will …

Life in complex systems, such as cities and organisms, comes to a standstill when global coordination of mass, energy and information flows is disrupted. Global coordination is no …

The decision to stop growing and mature into an adult is a critical point in development that determines adult body size, impacting multiple aspects of an adult’s …

When a founder cell and its progeny divide with incomplete cytokinesis, a network forms in which each intercellular bridge corresponds to a past mitotic event. Such networks are …

The extracellular signal–regulated kinase (ERK) controls multiple critical processes in the cell and is deregulated in human cancers, congenital abnormalities, immune diseases, and neurodevelopmental syndromes. Catalytic activity …

Animal pigment patterns are excellent models to elucidate mechanisms of biological organization. Although theoretical simulations, such as Turing reaction–diffusion systems, recapitulate many animal patterns, they are insufficient …

Reaction-diffusion models with nonlocal constraints naturally arise as limiting cases of coupled bulk-surface models of intracellular signalling. In this paper, a minimal, mass-conserving model of …

Mutations in signal transduction pathways lead to various diseases including cancers. MEK1 kinase, encoded by the human MAP2K1 gene, is one of the central components of the MAPK …

Bilateral symmetry defines much of the animal kingdom and is crucial for numerous functions of bilaterian organisms. Genetic approaches have discovered highly conserved patterning networks that establish bilateral …

Germline mutations upregulating RAS signaling are associated with multiple developmental disorders. A hallmark of these conditions is that the same mutation may present vastly different phenotypes in different …

Positional information in developing tissues often takes the form of stripes of gene expression that mark the boundaries of a particular cell type or morphogenetic process. How stripes …

Mutations in signal transduction pathways lead to various diseases including cancers. MEK1 kinase, encoded by the human MAP2K1 gene, is one of the central components of the MAPK …

From insects to mammals, oocytes and sperm develop within germline cysts comprising cells connected by intercellular bridges (ICBs). In numerous insects, formation of the cyst is accompanied by …

Segmentation of the Drosophila embryo is initiated by localized maternal signals. In this context, anteriorly localized Bicoid activates the gap genes in the anterior half of the embryo …

How does breaking the symmetry of an equation alter the symmetry of its solutions? Here, we systematically examine how reducing underlying symmetries from spherical to axisymmetric influences the …

Numerous engineered and natural systems form through reinforcement and stabilization of a deformed configuration that was generated by a transient force. An important class of such structures arises …

Small cell clusters exhibit numerous phenomena typically associated with complex systems, such as division of labour and programmed cell death. A conserved class of such clusters occurs during …

A conserved phase of gametogenesis is the development of oocytes and sperm within cell clusters (germline cysts) that arise through serial divisions of a founder cell. The resulting …

During early Drosophila embryogenesis, a network of gene regulatory interactions orchestrates terminal patterning, playing a critical role in the subsequent formation of the gut. We utilized CRISPR gene …

Gastrulation movements in all animal embryos start with regulated deformations of patterned epithelial sheets, which are driven by cell divisions, cell shape changes, and cell intercalations. Each of …

It has long been known that FGF signaling contributes to mesoderm formation, a germ layer found in triploblasts that is composed of highly migratory cells that give rise …

In most animals, the oocyte is the largest cell by volume. The oocyte undergoes a period of large-scale growth during its development, prior to fertilization. At first …

The early Drosophila embryo provides unique experimental advantages for addressing fundamental questions of gene regulation at multiple levels of organization, from individual gene loci to the entire genome …

Problems with networks of coupled oscillators arise in multiple contexts, commonly leading to the question about the dependence of network dynamics on network structure. Previous work has addressed …

The famous Arrhenius equation is well suited to describing the temperature dependence of chemical reactions but has also been used for complicated biological processes. Here, we evaluate how …

Modern studies of embryogenesis are increasingly quantitative, powered by rapid advances in imaging, sequencing and genome manipulation technologies. Deriving mechanistic insights from the complex datasets generated by these …

In early development, cells commit to a single germ fate despite receiving multiple, conflicting inductive cues. Here, we examine how cells in the Drosophila embryo integrate promesodermal and …

Terminal regions of Drosophila embryos are patterned by signaling through ERK, which is genetically deregulated in multiple human diseases. Quantitative studies of terminal patterning have been recently used …