During early vertebrate development, signals from a special region of the embryo, the organizer, can re-direct the fate of non-neural ectoderm cells to form a complete, patterned nervous system. This is called neural induction and has generally been imagined as a single signalling event, causing a switch of fate. Here, the Stern lab (UCL Cell and Developmental Biology) undertake a comprehensive analysis, in very fine time-course, of the events following exposure of competent ectoderm of the chick to the organizer (the tip of the primitive streak, Hensen’s node).
Trevers, K.E., Lu, H.-C., Yang, Y., Thiery, A.P., Strobl, A.C., Anderson, C., Pálinkášová, B., de Oliveira, N.M.M., de Almeida, I.M., Khan, M.A.F., Moncaut, N., Luscombe, N.M., Dale, L., Streit, A. and Stern, C.D. (2023) A gene regulatory network for neural induction. eLife 12, #e73189.
Read the full article here: https://elifesciences.org/articles/73189