Cover image
Planarian flatworms have the remarkable capacity to regenerate their entire body. Despite a wealth of molecular-genetic data, no constructive model of regenerative patterning exists. Levin and colleagues (doi:10.1242/bio.20123400) created a formalism for abstracting key features of flatworm anatomy from functional experimental data; an example of this graph representation is shown here superimposed upon successive stages of head regeneration in an amputated worm. New artificial intelligence tools can use the formalism and database to help derive algorithmic models of regeneration, establishing a new bioinformatics of shape.
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Cover article – A solution to prevent secondary flow in adherent cell cultures
Peter Szaraz and his colleagues show that, although secondary flow in small scale cultures can crucially affect cell phenotype and function, a simple modification of the classical round-shaped cell culture vessels can minimize the adverse effect of secondary flow.
Josh Currie, Tatiana Sandoval-Guzmán and their co-workers study dermal Prrx1 enhancer-positive cells, which are injury-responsive fibroblasts, and demonstrate that they readily migrate into the wound bed and amplify on average 16-fold beyond their uninjured numbers.
Have you seen our interviews with the early-career first authors of our papers? Recently, we caught up with first authors Peter Szaraz, Josh Currie, Jeanette C. Perron, Louise Roberts and Qingting Hu.
Biology Open has strong credentials and publishing with us is easy and fast. BiO aims to provide rapid publication for scientifically sound observations and valid conclusions in developmental, cell, experimental and translational biology. Submit your paper here – you’ll be in good company!
Recent disease mechanism highlights in BiO – Bernhard Weber and his team find that mice carrying the human Y227N mutation in the endogenous Best1 gene reveal a pathologic phenotype in testis. This provides an in vivo tool to evaluate therapeutic efficacies aimed at restoring protein function.
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preLights - Cross-kingdom recognition of bacterial small RNAs induces transgenerational pathogenic avoidance
Madhuja Samaddar highlights a preprint from Coleen Murphy’s lab, which uncovers how C. elegans pass on a learned avoidance of pathogenic Pseudomonas aeruginosa to four generations of its progeny!