How the shape of embryos and organs emerges during development is a fundamental
question that has fascinated scientists for centuries. Tissue dynamics arise from a small set …

The Dishevelled protein regulates many developmental processes in animals ranging from
Hydra to humans. Here, we discuss the various known signaling activities of this enigmatic …

During development, vertebrate embryos undergo dramatic changes in shape. The
lengthening and narrowing of a field of cells, termed convergent extension, contributes to a …

Planar cell polarity (PCP), the orientation and alignment of cells within a sheet, is a
ubiquitous cellular property that is commonly governed by the conserved set of proteins …

Animal development requires a carefully orchestrated cascade of cell fate specification
events and cellular movements. A surprisingly small number of choreographed cellular …

Cell motility is a widespread biological property that is best understood in the context of
individual cell migration. Indeed, studies of migration in culture have provided tremendous …

Cells of many tissues acquire cellular asymmetry to execute their physiologic functions. The
planar cell polarity system, first characterized in Drosophila, is important for many of these …

Evolution is of interest not only to developmental biology but also to genetics and genomics.
We are witnessing a new era in which evolution, development, genetics and genomics are …

Convergent extension (CE) is a fundamental and conserved collective cell movement that
forms elongated tissues during embryonic development. Thus far, studies have …

The synthesis of gene expression data and cis-regulatory analysis permits the elucidation of
genomic regulatory networks. These networks provide a direct visualization of the functional …