Neural crest cells are a population of stem cells that invade the embryo in early development. They play a big role in what you look like: the pigments of your eyes, of your skin, and the bone ...

As an embryo grows, there is a continuous stream of communication between cells to form tissues and organs. Cells need to read numerous cues from their environment, and these may be chemical or ...

By tracking neural crest cells in catshark embryos, researchers discovered that the molecular toolkit behind face-building is ...

Hirschsprung disease (HSCR) is a congenital intestinal disease characterised by functional obstruction of the colon. Herein, we investigated the role and mechanism of the gene GFRA4 in HSCR. GFRA4 ...

A team led by researchers at the University of Toronto has discovered that a group of cells located in the skin and other areas of the body, called neural crest stem cells, are the source of ...

An illustration of zebrafish heart development, showing the migration of cells in the growing embryo after 17 hours, 1 day and 2 days to form the heart. Most heart cells come from the embryonic ...

A crucial new mechanism that helps explain how the heart’s major blood vessels form during early development – and how disruptions to this process can lead to serious congenital heart defects – has ...

At the onset of vertebrate neurogenesis, neuroepithelial cells (NECs) in the neural tube, the earliest NSCs, switch their identity and generate radial glial cells that differentiate into neurons and ...

Microscope image of the heart of a 2-day-old zebrafish embryo with neural crest cells labeled green. The pumping chambers of the heart, the atrium and ventricle, are labeled.

The cytoskeleton gives cells their shape and helps them move. Researchers at Helmholtz Munich and Ludwig Maximilian University now show that, in neural stem cells, proteins of the cytoskeleton are ...