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Developmental Biology

What is developmental biology?

Developmental Biology addresses one of the most intriguing and fascinating questions in biology: how does a single cell, the fertilised egg, give rise to a complex multicellular organism.

Developmental Biology integrates genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, anatomy, physiology and imaging.

Research group leader: Dr Chris Thompson

Principal investigators

Members

  • Enrique Amaya - Signalling during development, wound healing and tissue regeneration
  • John Aplin - Embryo implantation and placental development
  • Hilary Ashe - Cell signalling and transcriptional regulation in Drosophila
  • Martin Baron - The role of Cell Adhesion molecules in Signal Transduction, the regulation of Stem cell fate and Cancer
  • Mike Dixon - Molecular genetics of craniofacial anomalies
  • Karel Dorey - Role of growth factor signalling during development and regeneration
  • David Garrod - Adhesion, signalling, differentiation and development of epithelial cells
  • Matthew Hardman - Factors which act as downstream mediators of the effects of hormones on wound healing.
  • Kathy Hentges - Cardiovascular Development and Genetics; B-cell Leukaemia
  • Shane Herbert - Molecular control of vascular development and angiogenesis
  • David Hughes - Cell Communication during Development
  • Sue Kimber - Early development and implantation of the mammalian embryo
  • Lindsay MacDougall - The Function of the Class II Phosphoinositide 3-kinase in Signalling and Development
  • Kimberly Mace - Adult stem cell regulation during wound healing
  • Tom Millard - Epithelial dynamics and fusion during embryonic development and tissue repair
  • Caroline Milner - Regulatory mechanisms in tissue remodeling and inflammation
  • Nancy Papalopulu - Neurogenesis and neural stem cells in vertebrate embryos
  • Berenika Plusa - Regulation and plasticity in early mammalian development
  • Matthew Ronshaugen - The role of non-coding RNAs in morphological evolution.
  • Tokiharu Takahashi - Evolutionary origin of vertebrate novelties
  • Chris Thompson - Signaling pathways that control cell fate choice and social behaviour

Affiliates

Programmed cell death in a root cap.

Confocal image of embryonic epithelial cells that tightly adhere to each other.

Microtubules in a leaf cell.

Mouse blastula stage embryo. Histone GFP expression marks the nuclei (green). Cell membranes are shown in red.

Transmembrane domains of wild-type and mutant proteolipid protein (PLP)

Mouse cortical progenitor cell differentiated in culture showing a transcription factor localised to the cytoplasm (red).

Structure of the signal recognition particle

Recruitment of primitive myeloid cells to embryonic wounds in Xenopus.

Model for the biogenesis of the multiple spanning membrane protein P2X2

Cnidarians like this sea anemone lack apparent mesoderm and bilateral symmetry.

GFP-tagged cytokeratin expressed in a human tissue culture cell.

An RNA in situ detecting a miRNA encoding gene in a gastrulating Drosophila embryo.

Zebrafish embryo at 1 day post-fertilisation.

Mid-gestation mouse embryo.

A human tissue culture cell.

Growth cone of a cultured primary Drosophila neuron stained against actin (green) and tubulin (purple).

Two-dimensional gel analysis of a plant cell protein extract.

The distribution of RNAs in a Drosophila embryo.

 

Our publications

Bonev, B, Pisco, A. and Papalopulu, N. (2011)
microRNA-9 reveals regional diversity of neural progenitors along the anterior-posterior axis.
Dev. Cell, in press.

Campbell L, Emmerson E, Davies F, Gilliver SC, Krust A, Chambon P, Ashcroft GS and Hardman MJ (2010)
Estrogen promotes cutaneous wound healing via estrogen receptor beta independent of its antiinflammatory activities.
J Exp Med. 207(9):1825-33.
PMID: 20733032 PMCID: PMC2931162 DOI 10.1084/jem.20100500

Ansell DM, Kloepper JE, Thomason HA, Paus R and Hardman MJ. (2010)
Exploring the "Hair Growth-Wound Healing Connection": Anagen Phase Promotes Wound Re-Epithelialization.
J Invest Dermatol. Oct 7.
PMID: 20927125 DOI: 10.1038/jid.2010.291

Panagiotaki N, Dajas-Bailador F, Amaya E, Papalopulu N and Dorey K. (2010)
Characterisation of a new regulator of BDNF signalling, Sprouty3, involved in axonal morphogenesis in vivo.
Development 2010 December, 137(23); 4005-4015.
PMID: 21062861 PMCID: PMC2976284 DOI: 10.1242/dev.053173

Dorey K and Amaya E (2010)
FGF signalling: diverse roles during early vertebrate embryogenesis.
Development. 137(22), 3731-3742. PMID: 20978071 DOI: 10.1242/dev.037689

Barron MJ, Brookes SJ, Kirkham J, Shore RC, Hunt C, Mironov A, Kingswell NJ, Maycock J, Shuttleworth CA, Dixon MJ (2010)
A mutation in the mouse Amelx tri-tyrosyl domain results in impaired secretion of amelogenin and phenocopies human X-linked amelogenesis imperfecta.
Human Molecular Genetics 19:1230-1247. PMID: 20067920 PMCID: PMC2838535 DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddq001

Thomason HA, Zhou H, Kouwenhoven EN, Dotto G-P, Restivo G, Nguyen B-C, Little H, Dixon MJ, van Bokhoven H, Dixon J (2010)
Co-operation between the transcription factors p63 and IRF6 is essential to prevent cleft palate.
Journal of Clinical Investigation 120:1561-1569.

Oldershaw RA, Baxter MA, Lowe ET, Bates N, Grady LM, Soncin F, Brison DR, Hardingham TE and Kimber SJ. (2010)
Directed differentiation of human embryonic stem cells toward chondrocytes.
Nat Biotechnol. 2010. 28(11):1187-94. PMID: 20967028 [PubMed - in process] DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1683

Mahdipour E, Charnock JC and Mace KA. (2010)
Hoxa3 promotes the differentiation of hematopoietic progenitor cells into proangiogenic Gr-1+CD11b+ myeloid cells.
Blood. 2010 PMID: 20974673 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] DOI: 10.1182/blood-2009-12-259549

Griffiths-Jones S, Hui JHL, Marco A and Ronshaugen M. (2010)
MicroRNA evolution by arm switching.
EMBO Reports. In press.

Dubaissi, E, and Papalopulu, N. (2011)
Embryonic frog epidermis: a model for the study of cell-cell interactions in the development of mucociliary disease.
Disease, Models and Mechanisms, in press.

Buttery N.J.,Thompson C.R.L, and Wolf J.B. (2010)
Complex genotype interactions influence social fitness during the developmental phase of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum.
Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 23:1664-71.
PMID: 20546090 DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02032.x

 

Recent grants and awards

Nancy Papalopulu, Enrique Amaya, Karel Dorey, Tom Millard and Berenika Plusa
Wellcome Trust Equipment grant: Confocal system for the imaging of live embryos, £303,165 (Nov 2010- Nov-2015)

Nancy Papalopulu
Wellcome Trust SRF: Studying neurogenesis through developmental time, £2,072,598 (Oct 2010- Oct 2015)

Hilary Ashe
Welcome Trust: Dynamic regulation of the Dpp signalling-responsive transcriptional network in the Drosophila embryo, £839,872

Mike Dixon and Jill Dixon
MRC: Prevention of cleft palate: the critical role of p63 and IRF6 signalling £675,828 (2010- 2013)

Caroline Milner and Tony Day
ARUK: The role of inter-alpha inhibitor in arthritis: friend or foe? £185,377 (Dec 2010- Dec 2013)

Matthew Ronshaugen
BBSRC: Developmental control of microRNA arm choice £450,402 (Feb 2011-Feb 2014)

Chris Thompson
NERC: Genetic architecture and constraint in social evolution, £580, 085 (Sept 2011- Sept 2013)

 

Impact

August 2010

Laura Campbell (Hardman group) has recently shown that the beneficial effects of estrogen replacement on wound healing are mediated by estrogen receptor beta, rather than estrogen receptor alpha. This key advance in the field of wound healing has been highlighted in the Nature journal SciBX and Faculty of 1000 Medicine.