During limb development, expression of cathepsin D and B genes prefigure the pattern of interdigital apoptosis including the differences between the chick and the webbed digits of the duck. Expression of cathepsin L is associated with advanced stages of degeneration. Analysis of Gremlin-/- and Dkk-/- mouse mutants and local treatments with BMP proteins reveal that the expression of cathepsin B ...

During the past 20 years, per-cycle and per-season pregnancy rates have improved markedly in wellmanaged horse farms. By contrast, early embryonic death (EED) has remained a significant cause of frustration and economic loss, with approximately 15% of pregnancies detected at day 15 after ovulation failing to survive to term. Moreover, the majority ( 60%) of these losses occur before day 42 afte...

Loss-of-function mutations in the gene ced-8 lead to the late appearance of cell corpses during embryonic development in C. elegans. ced-8 functions downstream of or in parallel to-the regulatory cell death gene ced-9 and may function as a cell death effector downstream of the caspase encoded by the programmed cell death killer gene ced-3. In ced-8 mutants, embryonic programmed cell death proba...

Abstract Excess platelet activation by extracellular vesicles (EVs) results in trophoblast inflammasome activation, interleukin 1? (IL-1?) preeclampsia (PE), and partial embryonic lethality. Embryonic thrombomodulin (TM) deficiency, which causes lethality hallmarked impaired proliferation, has been linked with maternal activation. We hypothesized that placental TM loss, are mechanistically to H...