Hypospadias, when the urethral opening is located on the ventral side of the penis, is one of the most common congenital malformations with an incidence of 3 per 1000 males. Hypospadias is considered a complex trait caused by several genetic and environmental factors; low birth weight, for example, is associated with an increased risk for hypospadias. Most cases of hypospadias are sporadic but ...

Hypospadias, when the urethral opening is located on the ventral side of the penis, is one of the most common congenital malformations with an incidence of 3 per 1000 males. Hypospadias is considered a complex trait caused by several genetic and environmental factors; low birth weight, for example, is associated with an increased risk for hypospadias. Most cases of hypospadias are sporadic but ...

The adult mammalian heart has a limited capacity for replacing lost tissue following injury. Mammalian cardiomyocytes exit the cell cycle shortly after birth, where they undergo a final round of DNA synthesis, binucleate, and terminally differentiate. In addition, low levels of cardiomyocyte turnover in the aging heart or following injury seem to be mediated mostly by cardiomyocyte division. Al...

Based on embryology and comparative genomics, recent studies reveal that genetic pathways gene regulatory elements responsible for the invasion of land by tetrapod ancestors are deeply conserved in fish. Finding evolutionary antecedents novelties fish has been a fundamental area inquiry biology. The fossil record demonstrates stepwise evolution organs over course water-to-land transition during...

This Special Issue of Journal of Developmental Biology (JDB) covers an indeed very "special" (at least to me) family of highly evolutionarily conserved genes, the Hox genes.[...].