{"title":"Insights into neural crest development from studies of avian embryos.","authors":"Shashank Gandhi, Marianne E Bronner","doi":"10.1387/ijdb.180038sg","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.180038sg","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The neural crest is a multipotent and highly migratory cell type that contributes to many of the defining features of vertebrates, including the skeleton of the head and most of the peripheral nervous system. 150 years after the discovery of the neural crest, avian embryos remain one of the most important model organisms for studying neural crest development. In this review, we describe aspects of neural crest induction, migration and axial level differences, highlighting what is known about the underlying gene regulatory mechanisms. Past and emerging technologies continue to improve the resolution with which we can examine important questions of neural crest development, with modern avian molecular embryology continuing to make important contributions.</p>","PeriodicalId":94228,"journal":{"name":"The International journal of developmental biology","volume":" ","pages":"183-194"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1387/ijdb.180038sg","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35975868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Specification of sensory placode progenitors: signals and transcription factor networks.","authors":"Andrea Streit","doi":"10.1387/ijdb.170298as","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.170298as","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sensory placodes contribute to much of the sensory nervous system in the vertebrate head. They give rise to parts of the eye, ear and nose, as well as to the sensory ganglia that innervate the face, tongue, oesophagus and visceral tissues. Despite their diversity, during development placodes arise from a population of common progenitor cells, which are first specified at the border of the neural plate. The chick has been particularly instrumental in dissecting the timing of these events, and recent evidence has highlighted the close relationship of placode progenitors and precursors for neural crest cells and the central nervous system. This review focuses on the induction of placode progenitors by localised signalling events, and the transcriptional networks that lead to their specification.</p>","PeriodicalId":94228,"journal":{"name":"The International journal of developmental biology","volume":" ","pages":"195-205"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1387/ijdb.170298as","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35975870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"General principles of spinal motor circuit development: early contributions from research on avian embryos.","authors":"Lynn T Landmesser","doi":"10.1387/ijdb.170305LL","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.170305LL","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Birds and mammals, both being amniotes, share many common aspects of development. Thus our understanding of how limb-innervating mammalian spinal motor circuits develop was greatly influenced by the use of the avian embryo (chick/quail) to bring about experimental perturbations to identify basic underlying mechanisms. These included embryonic surgery, the application of drugs to influence activity or molecular interactions, and the ability to observe motor behavior and make physiological recordings in intact developing embryos. This article will review some of these contributions, highlighting several areas including the acquisition of motoneuron subtype identity and target selection, as well as the role of spontaneous rhythmic activity in circuit development.</p>","PeriodicalId":94228,"journal":{"name":"The International journal of developmental biology","volume":" ","pages":"235-243"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1387/ijdb.170305LL","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35975873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sex determination and gonadal sex differentiation in the chicken model.","authors":"Claire E Hirst, Andrew T Major, Craig A Smith","doi":"10.1387/ijdb.170319cs","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.170319cs","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Our understanding of avian sex determination and gonadal development is derived primarily from the studies in the chicken. Analysis of gynandromorphic chickens and experimental chimeras indicate that sexual phenotype is at least partly cell autonomous in the chicken, with sexually dimorphic gene expression occurring in different tissue and different stages. Gonadal sex differentiation is just one of the many manifestations of sexual phenotype. As in other birds, the chicken has a ZZ male: ZW female sex chromosome system, in which the male is the homogametic sex. Most evidence favours a Z chromosome dosage mechanism underling chicken sex determination, with little evidence of a role for the W chromosome. Indeed, the W appears to harbour a small number of genes that are un-related to sexual development, but have been retained because they are dosage sensitive factors. As global Z dosage compensation is absent in birds, Z-linked genes may direct sexual development in different tissues (males having on average 1.5 to 2 times the expression level of females). In the embryonic gonads, the Z-linked DMRT1 gene plays a key role in testis development. Beyond the gonads, other combinations of Z-linked genes may govern sexual development, together with a role for sex steroid hormones. Gonadal DMRT1 is thought to activate other players in testis development, namely SOX9 and AMH, and the recently identified HEMGN gene. DMRT1 also represses ovarian pathway genes, such as FOXL2 and CYP19A1. A lower level of DMRT1 expression in the female gonads is compatible with activation of the ovarian pathway. Some outstanding questions include how the key testis and ovary genes, DMRT1 and FOXL2, are regulated. In addition, confirmation of the central role of these genes awaits genome editing approaches.</p>","PeriodicalId":94228,"journal":{"name":"The International journal of developmental biology","volume":" ","pages":"153-166"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1387/ijdb.170319cs","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35975424","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Chicken genomics.","authors":"Yuanyuan Cheng, David W Burt","doi":"10.1387/ijdb.170276yc","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.170276yc","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As one of the most economically important species and a unique model organism for biological and medical research, the chicken represents the first non-mammalian amniotic species to have its genome sequenced; and so far, the chicken reference genome represents the best assembled and annotated avian genome. Since the release of the first draft genome sequence, the chicken genome assembly has improved greatly in coverage, contiguity and accuracy owing to the continuous efforts made by the chicken genomics community to generate extensive new data using novel sequencing technologies. Transcriptome sequencing, especially the recent effort to characterise full-length transcripts in chicken tissues, has provided key insights into the complexity of structure and function of the chicken genome. In this article, we review the progress in chicken genome assembly and annotation, and recent advances in comparative genomics in birds. Limitations of current data and plans of research are also discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":94228,"journal":{"name":"The International journal of developmental biology","volume":" ","pages":"265-271"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1387/ijdb.170276yc","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35975759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Megan G Davey, Adam Balic, Joe Rainger, Helen M Sang, Michael J McGrew
{"title":"Illuminating the chicken model through genetic modification.","authors":"Megan G Davey, Adam Balic, Joe Rainger, Helen M Sang, Michael J McGrew","doi":"10.1387/ijdb.170323mm","DOIUrl":"10.1387/ijdb.170323mm","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>After decades of research investment, techniques for the robust and efficient modification of the chicken genome are now with us. The biology of the chicken has provided many challenges, as have the methods by which transgenes can be readily, stably and functionally integrated into the genome. Now that these obstacles have been surmounted and the chicken has been 'updated' to a cutting-edge modern model organism, a future as a central and versatile model in developmental biology beckons. In this review, we describe recent advances in genetic modification of the chicken and some of the many transgenic models developed for the elucidation of the mechanisms of embryogenesis.</p>","PeriodicalId":94228,"journal":{"name":"The International journal of developmental biology","volume":" ","pages":"257-264"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35975758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Chick muscle development.","authors":"Martin Scaal, Christophe Marcelle","doi":"10.1387/ijdb.170312cm","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.170312cm","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Striated muscle is the most abundant tissue in the body of vertebrates and it forms, together with the skeleton, the locomotory system required both for movement and the creation of the specific body shape of a species. Research on the embryonic development of muscles has a long tradition both in classical embryology and in molecular developmental biology. While the gene networks regulating muscle development have been discovered mostly in the mouse through genetics, our knowledge on cell lineages, muscle morphogenesis and tissue interactions regulating their formation is to a large extent based on the use of the avian model. This review highlights present knowledge of the development of skeletal muscle in vertebrate embryos. Special focus will be placed on the contributions from chicken and quail embryo model systems.</p>","PeriodicalId":94228,"journal":{"name":"The International journal of developmental biology","volume":" ","pages":"127-136"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1387/ijdb.170312cm","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35975420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hiroki Nagai, Masahiro Shin, Wei Weng, Fumie Nakazawa, Lars Martin Jakt, Cantas Alev, Guojun Sheng
{"title":"Early hematopoietic and vascular development in the chick.","authors":"Hiroki Nagai, Masahiro Shin, Wei Weng, Fumie Nakazawa, Lars Martin Jakt, Cantas Alev, Guojun Sheng","doi":"10.1387/ijdb.170291gs","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.170291gs","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The field of hematopoietic and vascular developmental research owes its origin to the chick embryo. Many key concepts, such as the hematopoietic stem cell, hemangioblast and hemogenic endothelium, were first proposed in this model organism. Genetically tractable models have gradually replaced the chick in the past two decades. However, advances in comparative genomics, transcriptomics and promoteromics promise a re-emergence of the chick embryo as a powerful model for hematopoietic/vascular research. This review summarizes the current status of our understanding of early blood/vascular development in the chick, focusing primarily on the processes of primitive hematopoiesis and early vascular network formation in the extraembryonic and lateral plate mesoderm territories. Emphasis is given to ontological and molecular association between the blood and endothelial cells and to the evolutionary relationship between the hemangioblasts, common precursors for the blood and endothelial lineages, and the coelomic epithelial lining cells. Links between early blood/vascular development and later definitive hematopoiesis are also discussed. Finally, potential applications of the chick model for comparative and omics-level studies of the blood/vascular system are highlighted.</p>","PeriodicalId":94228,"journal":{"name":"The International journal of developmental biology","volume":" ","pages":"137-144"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1387/ijdb.170291gs","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35975421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Avian models and the study of invariant asymmetry: how the chicken and the egg taught us to tell right from left.","authors":"Anne H Monsoro-Burq, Michael Levin","doi":"10.1387/ijdb.180047ml","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.180047ml","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>While the external vertebrate body plan appears bilaterally symmetrical with respect to anterior-posterior and dorsal-ventral axes, the internal organs are arranged with a striking and invariant left-right asymmetry. This laterality is important for normal body function, as alterations manifest as numerous human birth defect syndromes. The left-right axis is set up very early during embryogenesis by an initial and still poorly understood break in bilateral symmetry, followed by a cascade of molecular events that was discovered 20 years ago in the chick embryo model. This gene regulatory network leads to activation of the pitx2 gene on the left side of the embryo which ultimately establishes asymmetric organogenesis of the heart, gut, brain, and other organs. In this review, we highlight the crucial contributions of the avian model to the discovery of the differential transcriptional cascades operating on the Left and Right sides, as well as to the physiological events operating upstream of asymmetric gene expression. The chick was not only instrumental in the discovery of mechanisms behind left-right patterning, but stands poised to facilitate inroads into the most fundamental aspects that link asymmetry to the rest of evolutionary developmental biology.</p>","PeriodicalId":94228,"journal":{"name":"The International journal of developmental biology","volume":" ","pages":"63-77"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1387/ijdb.180047ml","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35975764","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pluripotency in avian species.","authors":"Bertrand Pain, Clémence Kress, Sylvie Rival-Gervier","doi":"10.1387/ijdb.170322bp","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.170322bp","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Pluripotency defines the ability of a cell to self-renew and to differentiate into all embryonic lineages both in vitro and in vivo. This definition was first established mainly with the mouse model and the establishment of mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in the 1980's and extended later on to other species including non-human primates and humans. Similarly, chicken ESCs were derived and established in vitro from pregastrulating embryos leading to cells with unique properties at molecular, epigenetic and developmental levels. By comparing the properties of murine, mammalian and avian ESCs and of the more recently discovered induced pluripotential stem (iPS)-derived cells generated in all of these species, avian specificities start to emerge including specific molecular genes, epigenetic mark profiles and original developmental properties. Here, we present common, but also avian-specific elements that contribute to defining avian pluripotency.</p>","PeriodicalId":94228,"journal":{"name":"The International journal of developmental biology","volume":" ","pages":"245-255"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1387/ijdb.170322bp","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35975757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}