Project 1: Bone Morphogenetic Proteins during dorsoventral patterning and gastrulation movements

The future fate of a cell in the later animal is determined by the position of its precursor cells at late blastula stages. Of particular importance is the position along the future dorsoventral axis. Based on ventralized or dorsalized mutants, we could show that the signaling proteins Bmp2b and Bmp7, their type I receptor Alk, and the Bmp-regulated transcription factor Smad5 are required for ventral cell fate specification, whereas dorsal development occurs when Bmp signaling is blocked by the secreted Bmp inhibitor Chordin. more...

 Project 2: Pituitary development and energy homeostasis

The pituitary gland (hypophysis) constitutes a physiological link between the nervous and the endocrine sys- tem, receiving inputs from the hypothalamus of the brain, to which it responds by the secretion of hormones that regulate basic body functions and the activity of other glands. The pituitary consists of two parts, the neurohypophysis, which derives from the brain, and the adenohypophyis, which derives from placodal ectoderm The adenohypophysis contains at least seven different cell types characterized by the different hormones they produce. more...

 Project 3: Skin development and wound healing

∆Np63, which we had initially isolated as a transcriptional target of Bmp signalling blocking neural specification in the ventral ectoderm, plays an additional later role in the derivatives of the ventral ectoderm, the epidermis. During larval stages, the epidermis of the zebrafish skin is bi-layered, while it becomes multi-layered in juvenile stages, similar to the stratified organization of the skin in mammals. In all stages, ∆Np63 expression is restricted to the basal layer, in which the skin stem cells are located. more...