From genes to patterns: five key dynamical systems concepts to decode developmental regulatory mechanisms Summary: Dynamical systems theory provides a powerful quantitative and intuitive framework to understand developmental processes. This Primer brings key concepts of this framework to the ever-growing ...

A Summer reading recommendation: new primer in @dev-journal.bsky.social explains how dynamical systems theory unlocks the logic of developmental patterning

Everything from bistable switches & oscillators to phase portraits & more with Python code to explore

journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Assistant Curator of Invertebrate Zoology, Careers At Field Museum Position Assistant Curator of Invertebrate Zoology FLSA Status Exempt Department Negaunee Integrative Research Center Our Mission Since the 1893 World Columbian Exposition our organization has aimed...

A rare job opportunity for Invertebrate Zoology: fieldmuseum.hrmdirect.com/employment/j...

BEHOLD! One of Earth's greatest lineages of life: the lil wiggle arm guys, Meteora.

These single-celled critters, originally found in deep-sea sediments, are SO DIFFERENT from other lifeforms on Earth that they're likely in their own kingdom (as in, the Animal Kingdom, the Plant Kingdom etc). 🧪🌿

Planar cell polarity coordination in a cnidarian embryo provides clues to animal body axis evolution The jellyfish embryonic body axis is globally coordinated by conserved planar cell polarity (PCP) mechanisms and oriented by localised Wnt3 in two steps, highlighting PCP’s role in animal axis evoluti...

Tsuyo's cool paper on Wnt3 being both a canonical and a PCP Wnt in Clytia is out doi.org/10.7554/eLif... Congratulations to everyone involved! @biodev-vlfr.bsky.social

I don't know... Depends on the context in which you have been cited. Imagine a sentence like "Prof. Moran's ridiculous claims that..." 😜

Congratulations!

Thanks, you are very kind. We'll keep trying.

Congratulations 🎉

Uri does really cool stuff in Hydractinia

Thanks, Uli!

Thank you!

Thanks, Uri!

Thanks, Yehu!

This long, difficult, but super cool project was funded by the @fwf-at.bsky.social, and led to David winning his own ESPRIT grant! Thanks!

elmo from sesame street is looking at the camera while standing in front of a wall . ALT: elmo from sesame street is looking at the camera while standing in front of a wall .

- Chordin does not care which BMPs it shuttles
- BMP shuttling by Chordin is a good candidate ancestral mechanism for the formation of the second axis in the urbilaterian, and maybe even in the last common cnidarian-bilaterian ancestor (cnidarian an bilaterian bilateralities can still be convergent)

There’s a lot more cool science in this paper, for example:
- BMP2/4/BMP5-8 heterodimers are the ligands required to establish the second body axis in Nematostella
- We obtained circumstantial but pretty convincing evidence that Chordin may be necessary for the BMP/BMP receptor interaction.

By generating local sources of either diffusible or membrane-tethered Chordin in the Chordin morphant background, David showed that mobility of Chordin is necessary and sufficient to generate a peak of BMP signaling opposite to the Chordin production site.

We prove that Nematostella Chordin acts not just as a local inhibitor of BMP signaling but also as a BMP shuttle.

Chordin-mediated BMP shuttling patterns the secondary body axis in a cnidarian Chordin-mediated BMP shuttling is the candidate mechanism for generating bilateral symmetry in the cnidarian-bilaterian ancestor.

David’s @davidmoersdorf.bsky.social cool paper about the role of Chordin in BMP signaling in the sea anemone Nematostella is finally out www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our brittle star patterning study is now out at EvoDevo! 🥳
doi.org/10.1186/s132...

@lowelab.bsky.social

Hi Allan, this was really a perfect timing for us. Very happy that we saw your preprint just before submitting ours showing a similar thing in a gnathiferan.

I forgot to mention the funders, and I should mention them! The project was funded by @fwf-at.bsky.social and @paulknabl.bsky.social is also a recipient of the @oeaw.bsky.social and KLI fellowships. Thanks!

🙃

So, have a read!
And one other thing for my PI friends: Paul Knabl (the first author) will defend his PhD around early September, and he is looking for a postdoc in evodevo. He is excellent both technically and intellectually. If you have a good project, consider giving it to him.

And June showed that this is bang in the middle of the pSMAD1/5 gradient! So, even if an animal has a CNS, BMP signaling is not "anti-neural". It is just "anti-ventral" (or, in case of chordates, "anti-dorsal").
BTW, early Spadella embryo has a beautiful ventral chordin and dorsal bmp2/4 - look:

We then collaborated with @thechitoncorner.bsky.social and his PhD student June Ordonez, who work with the chaetognathe Spadella - a spiralian, whose ventral CNS develops from two clusters of neuroblasts located laterally half-way along the DV axis in the early embryo.

... to repression of the neural genes. This shows us that BMP has a pro-neural role both in anthozoan and medusozoan cnidarians. Here, for example, is BMP activity in the ring nerve of the Tripedalia medusa bell.

The anti-neural role of BMP signaling is a side effect of its global function in dorsoventral patterning In Bilateria with centralized nervous systems (e.g. in vertebrates or arthropods), the minimum of the BMP signaling activity gradient defines the position of the central nervous system. BMP-dependent ...

The last part of @paulknabl.bsky.social 's PhD is now available at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Paul showed that BMP signaling is active in the diffuse nervous system of the sea anemone Nematostella and the box jellyfish Tripedalia. Moreover, suppression of BMP signaling in Nematostella leads...

Developmental system drift in dorsoventral patterning is linked to transitions to autonomous development in Annelida The Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) pathway is the ancestral signalling system defining the dorsoventral axis in bilaterally symmetrical animals. However, Spiralia, a large bilaterian clade including...

Cool paper! Congratulations to @chemamd.bsky.social, Emanuel Haillot and everyone else involved!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Mesoglea biogenesis reveals a cryptic aboral valve for pressure regulation in cnidarian morphogenesis Cnidarians are classically defined by a single oral opening, a hallmark of the blind gut model in early animal evolution. Here, we identify a pressure-sensitive aboral valve in Nematostella vectensis ...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...