Morphogenesis is an important component of animal development. Genetic redundancy has been proposed to be common among morphogenesis genes, posing a challenge to the genetic dissection of morphogenesis mechanisms. Genetic redundancy is more generally a challenge in biology, as large proportions of the genes in diverse organisms have no apparent loss of function phenotypes. Here, we present a sc...

A network of secreted proteins that interact with each other in the extracellular space regulates embryonic morphogenesis. Mathematical modeling offers an excellent opportunity to understand how morphogens signal and self-regenerate pattern.

Ancient and recent terrestrial carbonate-precipitating systems are characterised by a heterogeneous array of deposits volumetrically dominated calcite. In these environments, calcite precipitates display an extraordinary morphological diversity, from single crystal rhombohedral prisms, to blocky crystalline encrustations, or spherulitic dendritic aggregates. Despite many decades thorough descri...

The development and regeneration of feathers have gained much attention recently because of progress in the following areas. First, pattern formation. The exquisite spatial arrangement provides a simple model for decoding the rules of morphogenesis. Second, stem cell biology. In every molting, a few stem cells have to rebuild the entire epithelial organ, providing much to learn on how to regene...

These are consistent with proposals that Fgf10 expression in the developing sensory tissues is required to induce non-sensory development. To determine the otic epithelial functions of Fgf3 and Fgf10, we generated double conditional mutants using TgPax2Cre, and found that as expected, both genes play roles in semicircular canal morphogenesis. Unexpectedly, these genes also appear to have redund...