Developmental Biology

eLife assessment

This study presents an important finding that Obox4 and Dux act redundantly in regulating zygotic genome activation in mice. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid. The work will be of interest to researchers interested in early embryo development and epigenetic reprogramming.

eLife assessment

The authors identify a population of neurons with a specific complement of markers that originate in a distinct location from where cerebellar nuclear precursor cells have been thought to originate, that show distinct developmental properties. The discovery of a new germinal zone giving rise to a new population of CN neurons is an important finding, and it enriches our understanding of cerebellar development. The claims are supported by solid evidence and the authors use a wide range of technical approaches, including transgenic mice, that allow them to disentangle the influence of distinct developmental organizers.

eLife assessment

This useful study focuses on gene regulatory mechanisms essential for hindbrain development. Through molecular genetics and biochemistry, the authors propose a new mechanism for the control of Hox genes, which encode highly conserved transcription factors essential for hindbrain development. However, the strength of evidence is incomplete, as the main claims are only partially supported by the data. This work will be of interest to developmental biologists.

eLife assessment

This important study presents a new quantitative imaging pipeline that describes with high temporal precision and throughput the movements of late-stage Drosophila embryos, a critical moment when motion first appears. A new approach is used to explore the role of miRNAs in motion onset and presents solid evidence that shows a role for miR-2b-1 and its target Janus in embryonic motion. The data are well supported but do not provide mechanistic insight into the emergence of movement while the writing inflates the importance of the conclusions. The authors must change the name of Janus which is already used in Drosophila genetics.

eLife assessment

Morphological characteristics and phenotypes of mutations in key developmental genes suggest that head, trunk, and tail development are regulated by discernible modules. Gdf11 signalling plays a crucial role in orchestrating the transition from trunk to tail tissues in vertebrate embryos. This important study presents convincing evidence that Tgfbr1 acts upstream of Isl1 (a pivotal effector of Gdf11 signalling) and regulates blood vessels, the lateral plate mesoderm, and the endoderm associated with the trunk-to-tail transition. Together with the previous studies, this work identifies a key signal that acts as the pivot of the trunk-to-tail transition.

eLife assessment

This study reports an important finding highlighting the essential role of the putative ion channel, TMC7 (transmembrane channel-like 7) in male fertility, thereby significantly advancing our understanding of the function of the previously uncharacterized protein in sperm development. The evidence supporting TMC7's requirement in acrosome biogenesis during spermatogenesis is solid, and its function as an ion channel requires more study.

eLife assessment

This manuscript provides useful findings to further explore the heterogeneity of hematopoietic stem cells and myeloid-biased hematopoiesis during aging. The results presented in this study are incomplete and additional data is needed to strengthen the conclusions. Some of the methods and data analyses, including the replicates and statistical robustness, remain inadequate to support the primary claims.

eLife assessment

The results from this study, which investigates the mechanisms necessary for initiating tissue invagination using a cellular Potts modelling approach, suggests that apical constriction is not sufficient to drive the process by itself. The study highlights how choices inherent to modelling - such as permitting straight or curved cell edges - may affect the outcome of simulations and, consequently, their biophysical interpretation. Despite incomplete evidence supporting their major claims due to a rather coarse-grained exploration of the model, this work is useful for biophysicists investigating complex tissue deformation through computational frameworks.

eLife assessment

The authors provide solid evidence that any contribution of oligodendrocyte precursors to the developing cortex from the lateral ganglionic eminence is minimal in scope. The methods used support the conclusions, with some technical concerns that the authors can address with further experimentation. These are considered valuable additions to our understanding of the origins of oligodendrocytes in the forebrain during development.

eLife assessment

This study, which seeks to identify factors from the glial niche that support and maintain neural stem cells, unveils a novel role for ferritin in this process. Furthermore, the work shows that defects in larval brain development resulting from ferritin knockdown can be attributed to impaired Fe-S cluster activity and ATP production. These findings will be valuable to both oncologists and neurobiologists, though the supporting evidence is currently incomplete.

eLife assessment

The important study established a large-scale objective and integrated multiple optical microscopy systems to demonstrate their potential for long-term imaging of the developmental process. The convincing imaging data cover a wide range of biological applications, such as organoids, mouse brains, and quail embryos, but enhancing image quality can further enhance the method's effectiveness. This work will appeal to biologists and imaging technologists focused on long-term imaging of large fields.

eLife assessment

This important study demonstrates that the cells in the behavior of the presomitic mesoderm in zebrafish embryos depends on both an intrinsic program and external information, which provides new insight into the biology underlying embryo axis segmentation. The findings are supported convincingly by a thorough and quantitative single-cell real-time imaging approach, both in vitro and in vivo, which the authors developed.

eLife assessment

Using single-cell sequencing, high-resolution imaging, and inducible genetic deletion of yolk-sac (YS) derived macrophages, the authors present a useful map of fetal liver macrophage subpopulations and provide important data demonstrating that heterogeneous fetal liver macrophages regulate erythrocyte enucleation, interact physically with fetal HSCs, and may regulate neutrophil accumulation in the fetal liver. These novel findings, although yet incomplete, might provide a solid foundation for further investigating the effects of macrophages on HSC function during fetal hematopoiesis and into adulthood and will be useful for the field of macrophage biology and developmental hematopoiesis.

eLife assessment

The findings are important and would potentially have theoretical and practical implications outside the field. However the strength of evidence presented was assessed as being incomplete in several respects. Major strengths are (1) genetic factors in facial appearance are of broad interest, and the potential influence of possibly identical factors in a serious congenital disorder (cleft lip/palate) heightens that interest further; (2) proving which single nucleotide variants influence phenotypes, and by what mechanisms, is a major challenge for the field as a whole. The weakness, as assessed, was that in its present form the experimental approach was not sufficiently rigorous to support the conclusions unambiguously.

eLife assessment

This important study presents data suggesting that HFD-induced histone epimutations in sperm may impact the transcriptome of the placenta, thereby contributing to the paternal transmission of paternal metabolic disorders to offspring. Although the hypothesis is interesting and the evidence presented is compelling, more careful statistical analyses and functional validation experiments are needed to further strengthen the conclusion.

eLife assessment

Benner et al. identify OVO as a transcriptional factor instrumental in promoting the expression of hundreds of genes essential for female germline identity and early embryo development. While they provide the dataset that supports their model, the major evidence for the model proposed in this manuscript comes from a separate manuscript by the same group, making the contribution of this manuscript somewhat unclear - that is, the evidence provided in this paper is incomplete to support the proposal of this paper. Overall, the study provides useful information that will help understand the function of ovo during oogenesis and early embryonic development.

eLife assessment

This study provides insights into the developmental origin of endothelial cells found in blood vessels called pial collaterals. The work is important, as collateral capacity can strongly influence the trajectory of outcomes with vascular blockage, and the approaches are novel and overall convincing; however, some mechanistic claims are only partially supported, and collateral characterization is incomplete. Given the clear positive correlation between pial collateral flow and improved stroke outcome, this study will be of interest to vascular biologists and clinicians caring for stroke patients.

eLife assessment

This study showing how the Circle of Willis acquires smooth muscle coverage during development in the zebrafish model is important, and the evidence provided is solid, with only minor weaknesses. The work is of interest to researchers working on cerebral circulation, angiogenesis, and developmental vascular stabilization.

eLife assessment

This important study conducts genetic analyses utilizing zebrafish, mouse, and mouse embryonic stem cell models to elucidate the role of Rtf1, a component of the PAF1 complex, in early cardiac development. By combining marker gene expression analysis, single-cell transcriptomics, ChIP-seq, and chemical inhibition, the study provides convincing evidence that Rtf1-mediated RNAPII (Pol2) transcriptional pausing is required for early cardiac development and that attenuation of pause release by pharmacological inhibition of Cdk9, a component of the PTEF-b complex that regulates the transition between the pausing and elongation phases of transcription, can partially restore transcriptional pausing and cardiogenesis in zebrafish rtf1 mutants. The work will be of broad interest to developmental biologists.

eLife assessment

This study presents a valuable finding that a testis-enriched gene is essential for normal formation and function of the sperm flagellum, motility, and male fertility in mice. The data on phenotypic characterization are solid, but the evidence supporting the direct role of this protein in preventing RNP granule formation in the sperm flagellum appears insufficient. This work will be of interest to biomedical researchers who work on testicular biology and male fertility.