Developmental Biology

Human spinal cord in vitro differentiation pace is initially maintained in heterologous embryonic environments

1. Alwyn Dady
2. Lindsay Davidson
3. Pamela A Halley
4. Kate G Storey

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript is of potential interest to a large audience in the fields of stem cells, developmental biology and neural regeneration. The authors assess the roles of extrinsic versus intrinsic signalling on differentiation of human neural cells by comparing their differentiation rates across different environments (in vitro, in the human embryo and grafted into a chicken embryo). While the experimental design tests the role of environment on differentiation, some aspects of data analysis need to be clarified and extended to support the conclusions.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Recapitulating human cardio-pulmonary co-development using simultaneous multilineage differentiation of pluripotent stem cells

1. Wai Hoe Ng
2. Elizabeth K Johnston
3. Jun Jie Tan
4. Jacqueline M Bliley
5. Adam W Feinberg
6. Donna B Stolz
7. Ming Sun
8. Piyumi Wijesekara
9. Finn Hawkins
10. Darrell N Kotton
11. Xi Ren

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  In this manuscript, the authors present at interesting strategy for directing simultaneous induction of both mesoderm-derived cardiac and endoderm-derived lung epithelial lineages from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC). All reviewers found the work to be of interest, but concerns were raised regarding the efficiency of the differentiation process (including % of differentiated cells in the final cultures) . In addition, it is noted that experiments presented are based on analysis of a single hiPSC cell line, and only part of the differentiation was repeated in another cell line, and thus the broader applicability of the presented protocol remains to be established. However, the interesting data support the conclusions presented. It is likely that the presented methods will be very useful for researchers focusing on heart and lung development, and may inspire others to take similar approaches for studying development of other organs.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Nephronectin-integrin α8 signaling is required for proper migration of periocular neural crest cells during chick corneal development

1. Justin Ma
2. Lian Bi
3. James Spurlin
4. Peter Lwigale

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript examines the role of Nephronectin-Integrin a8 signaling in early stages in the avian corneal development. This is an understudied system with numerous gaps in our comprehension how neural crest derived cells migrate into the "open" space between the corneal epithelium and lens and form the corneal endothelium and stroma. Novel insights are generated on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of this critical process of anterior segment morphogenesis.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Optogenetic inhibition of actomyosin reveals mechanical bistability of the mesoderm epithelium during Drosophila mesoderm invagination

1. Hanqing Guo
2. Michael Swan
3. Bing He

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript studies a topic of interest to developmental biologists using a combination of optogenetics, biophysical concepts, and mathematical modeling. How in plane contractile forces cause out of plane shape changes is a relevant open question, and the optogenetic tools developed in this work provide a new strategy to address the question.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Endothelial cell signature in muscle stem cells validated by VEGFA-FLT1-AKT1 axis promoting survival of muscle stem cell

1. Mayank Verma
2. Yoko Asakura
3. Xuerui Wang
4. Kasey Zhou
5. Mahmut Ünverdi
6. Allison P Kann
7. Robert S Krauss
8. Atsushi Asakura

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript investigates the role of role of the VEGFA signaling cascade, which is widely known to regulate formation of blood vessels, in muscle satellite cells and muscular diseases. on studying the relationship between muscle stem cells (MuSCs) and blood vessels. The authors identified the FLT1-AKT1 axis as an important effector of VEGFA on MuSC survival. They conducted a series of in silico, in vitro and in vivo experiments and showed that VEGFA-FLT1-AKT signaling promotes satellite cell survival both the physiologic and myopathy conditions. The paper will be interesting not only for muscle biologists, but also cell biologists and the general life science field.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #4 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

N-myc downstream regulated gene 1 (ndrg1) functions as a molecular switch for cellular adaptation to hypoxia

1. Jong S Park
2. Austin M Gabel
3. Polina Kassir
4. Lois Kang
5. Prableen K Chowdhary
6. Afia Osei-Ntansah
7. Neil D Tran
8. Soujanya Viswanathan
9. Bryanna Canales
10. Pengfei Ding
11. Young-Sam Lee
12. Rachel Brewster

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The manuscript details the function of the N-Myc downstream regulated gene 1 (NDRG1) during induced hypoxia using the anoxic developing zebrafish as a model system. With some additional support for the central claim of a switch for metabolic suppression, this paper will be of interest to scientists with a focus on kidney development, factors that regulate hypoxic survival, and metabolism in response to stress conditions.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Differential regulation of cranial and cardiac neural crest by serum response factor and its cofactors

1. Colin J Dinsmore
2. Philippe Soriano

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This carefully executed study suggests new mechanisms by which Serum Response Factor (Srf) regulates transcription. The manuscript reports the effects that loss of Srf function has on different neural crest lineages in the mouse. The authors conclude that within neural crest, the main function of Srf is in the cardiac neural crest lineage where it regulates cytoskeletal genes.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Cavefish cope with environmental hypoxia by developing more erythrocytes and overexpression of hypoxia-inducible genes

1. Corine M van der Weele
2. William R Jeffery

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This article provides insight into how Astyanax mexicanus cavefish may have adapted to the hypoxic waters present in the cave environment. How the extreme environmental pressure of low oxygen has shaped cavefish evolution has been understudied compared to other pressures like absence of light or low nutrients. This is the first study to look for changes in early cavefish development that may provide hypoxia tolerance. The claims that cavefish have expanded erythrocyte development and increased hypoxia gene expression are strongly supported by the data. Demonstrating that these traits are adaptive and provide hypoxia tolerance requires further assessment of the current results and would be strengthened by additional experiments. Overall, this work is an important first step in understanding the evolution of hypoxia tolerance in A. mexicanus cavefish.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

KDM6B interacts with TFDP1 to activate P53 signaling in regulating mouse palatogenesis

1. Tingwei Guo
2. Xia Han
3. Jinzhi He
4. Jifan Feng
5. Junjun Jing
6. Eva Janečková
7. Jie Lei
8. Thach-Vu Ho
9. Jian Xu
10. Yang Chai

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper is a tour de force study, with elegant mouse genetics and potentially clinically relevant rescue results using a small molecule inhibitor that can aleriorate cleft palate in a mutant mouse model. The work will be of interest to the craniofacial biology community and to the broader developmental biology community, as well as to all those devoted to the study of the epigenetic and transcriptional regulation of morphogenesis and organogenesis.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Rbfox1 is required for myofibril development and maintaining fiber type–specific isoform expression in Drosophila muscles

1. Elena Nikonova
2. Amartya Mukherjee
3. Ketaki Kamble
4. Christiane Barz
5. Upendra Nongthomba
6. Maria L Spletter

Reviewed by Review Commons