Vertebrate ancestors would have increased their egg size to store yolk, and the increase is considered to have altered the cleavage pattern and germ layer formation. Amphibian holoblastic cleavage in which all blastomeres contribute to any one of the three primary germ layers has been widely thought to be a developmental pattern in the stem lineage of vertebrates, and meroblastic cleavage to ha...

We have shown that maternal manganese (Mn) exposure caused sustained disruption of hippocampal neurogenesis of mouse offspring. To clarify the effects of maternal Mn exposure on epigenetic gene regulation contributing to the sustained disruption of hippocampal neurogenesis, we treated pregnant ICR mice with MnCl₂ in diet from gestational day 10 through day 21 after delivery on weaning and searc...

Amphibian holoblastic cleavage in which all blastomeres contribute to any one of the three primary germ layers has been widely thought to be a developmental pattern in the stem lineage of vertebrates, and meroblastic cleavage to have evolved independently in each vertebrate lineage. In extant primitive vertebrates, agnathan lamprey and basal bony fishes also undergo holoblastic cleavage, and th...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Family history of stroke is an established risk factor for stroke. We evaluated whether family history of stroke predisposed to certain stroke subtypes and whether it differed by sex in young patients with stroke. METHODS We used data from the Stroke in Fabry Patients study, a large prospective, hospital-based, screening study for Fabry disease in young patients (aged <...

T-box transcription factors regulate many developmental processes. Here we report the cloning and expression analysis of ske-T, a novel sea urchin T-box gene. The distribution of the maternal ske-T transcript is uniform in the egg and early embryonic stages while zygotic expression is restricted to the skeletogenic mesenchyme lineage.

The rice genus, Oryza, which comprises 23 species and 9 recognized genome types, represents an enormous gene pool for genetic improvement of rice cultivars. Clarification of phylogenetic relationships of rice genomes is critical for effective utilization of the wild rice germ plasm. By generating and comparing two nuclear gene (Adh1 and Adh2) trees and a chloroplast gene (matK) tree of all rice...

The factors promoting the evolution of parental care strategies have been extensively studied in experiment and theory. However, most attempts to examine parental care in an evolutionary context have evaluated broad taxonomic categories. The explosive and recent diversifications of East African cichlid fishes offer exceptional opportunities to study the evolution of various life history traits ...

Ghysels (2012) argues for a ‘gendered need’ explanation of lineage based differences in grandparental investment. Maternal grandmothers are subsidiary care-givers: only if mothers fail to fulfil this gender role, (maternal) grandmothers will step in. The SHARE data do indeed seem to support this explanation (though see Appendix). However, it is not at odds with an evolutionary explanation, such...

This study sought to assess mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diversity and phylogeographic structure of chickens from five agro-ecological zones of Zimbabwe. Furthermore, chickens from Zimbabwe were compared with populations from other geographical regions (Malawi, Sudan and Germany) and other management systems (broiler and layer purebred lines). Finally, haplotypes of these animals were aligned to c...

The first lineage segregation in the mouse embryo generates the inner cell mass (ICM), which gives rise to the pluripotent epiblast and therefore the future embryo, and the trophectoderm (TE), which will build the placenta. The TE lineage depends on the transcription factor Cdx2. However, when Cdx2 first starts to act remains unclear. Embryos with zygotic deletion of Cdx2 develop normally until...