The body axis of vertebrate embryos is periodically subdivided into 3D multicellular units called somites. While genetic oscillations and molecular prepatterns determine the initial length-scale of somites, mechanical processes have been implicated in sett ...
In this thesis, I present a self-organizing neural tube organoid that is strikingly similar in morphology, cell-type composition, and patterning to the mouse embryonic neural tube. When exposed to a sequence of epiblast culture conditions and neural differ ...
During the trunk-to-tail transition, axial progenitors relocate from the epiblast to the tail bud. Here, we show that this process entails a major regulatory switch, bringing tail bud progenitors under Gdf11 signaling control. Gdf11 mutant embryos have an ...
Although stem cells hold tremendous potential for clinical applications, their in vitro manipulation remains very challenging. In vivo, stem cells reside in intricate 3D microenvironments, termed niche, in which many local and systemic extrinsic factors ar ...
Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) is a master regulator of pigmented cell survival and differentiation with direct transcriptional links to cell cycle, apoptosis and pigmentation. In mouse, Mitf is expressed early and uniformly in optic ...
c-Myc is involved in the control of diverse cellular processes and implicated in the maintenance of different tissues including the neural crest. Here we report that c-Myc is particularly important for pigment cell development and homeostasis. Targeting c- ...
Giant congenital naevi are pigmented childhood lesions that frequently lead to melanoma, the most aggressive skin cancer. The mechanisms underlying this malignancy are largely unknown, and there are no effective therapies. Here we describe a mouse model fo ...
In vertebrates, face and throat structures, such as jaw, hyoid and thyroid cartilages develop from a rostrocaudal metameric series of pharyngeal arches, colonized by cranial neural crest cells (NCCs). Colinear Hox gene expression patterns underlie arch spe ...
BACKGROUND: Notch signaling influences binary cell fate decisions in a variety of tissues. The Notch1 receptor is widely expressed during embryogenesis and is essential for embryonic development. Loss of global Notch1 function results in early embryonic le ...
