Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) are synthetic, transmembrane proteins that trigger immune cell signaling following their engagement. They have been first utilized in T cells and later in natural killer (NK) cells to redirect their cytotoxicity toward a s ...
In humans, mice, and other mammals key internal organs such as the gut, the lungs, the pancreas, and the liver all derive from the same embryonic tissue: the endoderm. The development of all of these structures thus depends on a same set of early cells, an ...
Classic microsurgical techniques, such as those used in the early 1900s by Mangold and Spemann, have been instrumental in advancing our understanding of embryonic development. However, these techniques are highly specialized, leading to issues of inter-ope ...
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 ...
Allocation of cells to an endodermal fate in the gastrulating embryo is driven by Nodal signaling and consequent activation of TGF beta pathway. In vitro methodologies striving to recapitulate the process of endoderm differentiation, however, use TGF beta ...
Most genes in higher eukaryotes express isoforms with distinct 3' untranslated regions (3' UTRs), generated by alternative polyadenylation (APA). Since 3' UTRs are predominant locations of post-transcriptional regulation, APA can render such programs condi ...
Cell labeling technologies, including the Cre/loxP system, are powerful tools in developmental biology. Although the conventional Cre/loxP system has been extensively used to label the expression of specific genes, it is less frequently used for labeling p ...
How embryos scale patterning according to size is still not fully understood. Through in silico screening and analysis of reaction-diffusion systems that could be responsible for scaling, we predicted the existence of genes whose expression is sensitive to ...
The vertebrate axis is segmented into repetitive structures, the vertebrae. In fish, these segmented structures are thought to form from the paraxial mesoderm and the adjacent notochord. Recent work revealed an autonomous patterning mechanism in the zebraf ...
Activin-A, a transforming growth factor ê µ family member, is a pleiotropic cytokine with diverse functions in development, fertility, adult tissue homeostasis, and aging. Accordingly, deregulation of Activin-A signaling has been associated with many patho ...
Transposable elements (TEs) contribute to the evolution of gene regulatory networks and are dynamically expressed throughout human brain development and disease. One gene regulatory mechanism influenced by TEs is the miRNA system of post-transcriptional co ...