Issue Information

Front cover: The position of the hindlimb, or the length of the trunk, of tetrapods is highly diversified. Very recently, it was revealed that the timing of expression of Gdf11 gene in tetrapods' embryonic development plays an important role in determining the eventual position of the sacral vertebrae and the hindlimb beyond species. In some species that has a short trunk, such as frog, Gdf11 is expressed relatively earlier; in contrast, it is expressed much later in snakes' embryo. On the cover of this issue, we drew tetrapods with various lengths of the vertebrae, imitating Choju‐jinbutsu‐giga, one of Japan's national treasures, on a photograph of bamboos, which remind us of somites. For drawing this image, we referred to a website https://nagoyaumb5.wixsite.com/morphogenesis/takayuki-suzuki and a research paper by Matsubara et al. (2017) Nature Ecology and Evolution, vol. 1, pp.1392–1399, DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0247-y. Designed by TRAIS Co., Ltd. (Kobe, Japan).
Source: Genes to Cells - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Tags: ISSUE INFORMATION Source Type: research