The flattening of leaves to form broad blades is an important adaptation that maximizes photosynthesis. However, the molecular mechanism underlying this process remains unclear. The WUSCHEL-RELATED HOMEOBOX (WOX) genes WOX1 and PRS are expressed in the leaf marginal domain to enable leaf flattening, but the nature of WOX expression establishment remains elusive. Here, we report that adaxial-expressed MONOPTEROS (MP) and abaxial-enriched auxin together act as positional cues for patterning the WOX domain. MP directly binds to the WOX1 and PRS promoters and activates their expression. Furthermore, redundant abaxial-enriched ARF repressors suppress WOX1 and PRS expression, also through direct binding. In particular, we show that ARF2 is redundantly required with ARF3 and ARF4 to maintain the abaxial identity. Taken together, these findings explain how adaxial-abaxial polarity patterns the mediolateral axis and subsequent lateral expansion of leaves.

Stem cells are responsible for organogenesis, but it is largely unknown whether and how information from stem cells acts to direct organ patterning after organ primordia are formed. It has long been proposed that the stem cells at the plant shoot apex produce a signal, which promotes leaf adaxial-abaxial (dorsoventral) patterning. Here we show the existence of a transient low auxin zone in the adaxial domain of early leaf primordia. We also demonstrate that this adaxial low auxin domain contributes to leaf adaxial-abaxial patterning. The auxin signal is mediated by the auxin-responsive transcription factor MONOPTEROS (MP), whose constitutive activation in the adaxial domain promotes abaxial cell fate. Furthermore, we show that auxin flow from emerging leaf primordia to the shoot apical meristem establishes the low auxin zone, and that this auxin flow contributes to leaf polarity. Our results provide an explanation for the hypothetical meristem-derived leaf polarity signal. Opposite to the original proposal, instead of a signal derived from the meristem, we show that a signaling molecule is departing from the primordium to the meristem to promote robustness in leaf patterning. Extensive molecular genetic studies of more than a decade have identified a transcriptional regulatory network containing several adaxially or abaxially expressed leaf abaxial-and adaxialpromoting genes (1-6). These genes encode transcription factors and small RNAs, and their domain-specific expression patterns are required for adaxial-abaxial asymmetric cell differentiation and lamina expansion. Regulatory genes expressed in the abaxial domain suppress those expressed in the adaxial domain and vice versa. MicroRNAs 165 and 166 (MiR165/166) and transcription factor-encoding KANADI (KAN) genes are expressed in the abaxial domain and restrict the expression of class III homeo-

How appendages, such as plant leaves or animal limbs, develop asymmetric shapes remains a fundamental question in biology. Although ongoing research has revealed the genetic regulation of organ pattern formation, how gene activity ultimately directs organ shape remains unclear. Here, we show that leaf dorsoventral (adaxial-abaxial) polarity signals lead to mechanical heterogeneity of the cell wall, related to the methyl-esterification of cell-wall pectins in tomato and Arabidopsis. Numerical simulations predicate that mechanical heterogeneity is sufficient to produce the asymmetry seen in planar leaves. Experimental tests that alter pectin methyl-esterification, and therefore cell wall mechanical properties, support this model and lead to polar changes in gene expression, suggesting the existence of a feedback mechanism for mechanical signals in morphogenesis. Thus, mechanical heterogeneity within tissue may underlie organ shape asymmetry.

Sexually dimorphic phenotypes are a universal phenomenon in animals. In the model animal fruit fly Drosophila, males and females exhibit long- and short-sleep phenotypes, respectively. However, the mechanism is still a mystery. In this study, we showed that juvenile hormone (JH) is involved in regulation of sexually dimorphic sleep in Drosophila, in which gain of JH function enlarges differences of the dimorphic sleep phenotype with higher sleep in males and lower sleep in females, while loss of JH function blurs these differences and results in feminization of male sleep and masculinization of female sleep. Further studies indicate that germ cell-expressed (GCE), one of the JH receptors, mediates the response in the JH pathway because the sexually dimorphic sleep phenotypes cannot be rescued by JH hormone in a gce deletion mutant. The JH-GCE regulated sleep dimorphism is generated through the sex differentiation-related genes -fruitless (fru) and doublesex (dsx) in males and sex-lethal (sxl), transformer (tra) and doublesex (dsx) in females. These are the “switch” genes that separately control the sleep pattern in males and females. Moreover, analysis of sleep deprivation and circadian behaviors showed that the sexually dimorphic sleep induced by JH signals is a change of sleep drive and independent of the circadian clock. Furthermore, we found that JH seems to also play an unanticipated role in antagonism of an aging-induced sleep decrease in male flies. Taken together, these results indicate that the JH signal pathway is critical for maintenance of sexually dimorphic sleep by regulating sex-relevant genes.

A novel Bacillus subtilis KD1 strain was isolated and identified from healthy broilers, and its phylogenetic classification was subsequently analyzed. To evaluate its probiotic availability, its growth characteristics and tolerance for the gut environment were evaluated in vitro. The results suggest that B. subtilis KD1 is superior in secreting neutral protease and is highly tolerant of gastric acid and bile salt. In the logarithmic growth phase, the neutral protease reached a maximum of 1,369.3 U/mL. When all live bacteria had become spores in the broth, B. subtilis KD1 was freeze dried and fed to broilers at 10(9), 5 × 10(9), and 10(10) bacilli/kg of feed. The animal trial results suggest that the addition of the new strain significantly improved intestinal flora by increasing lactobacilli and reducing Escherichia coli (P < 0.05) as compared with the control; hence, B. subtilis KD1 is a promising probiotic organism in broilers.

Our analyses demonstrate that miR-200c represses hESC-CM differentiation and maturation. The integrative computation and experimental approaches described here, when applied more broadly, will enhance our understanding of the interplays between miRNAs and TFs in controlling cardiac development and disease processes.

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Circadian rhythm is a ubiquitous phenomenon in many organisms ranging from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. During more than four decades, the intrinsic and exogenous regulations of circadian rhythm have been studied. This review summarizes the core endogenous oscillation in Drosophila and then focuses on the neuropeptides, neurotransmitters and hormones that mediate its outputs and integration in Drosophila and the links between several of these (pigment dispersing factor (PDF) and insulin-like peptides) and neurodegenerative disease. These signaling molecules convey important network connectivity and signaling information for normal circadian function, but PDF and insulin-like peptides can also convey signals that lead to apoptosis, enhanced neurodegeneration and cognitive decline in flies carrying circadian mutations or in a senescent state.