Reviews in Developmental Cell: Vascular Biology and More

Abstract

In this issue, we're happy to present a themed group of reviews on vascular biology. The five articles included cover the roles of transcription factors, Notch signaling and oxygen/metabolism in regulating vasculogenesis, the process of lumen formation, and the control of vascular integrity. Our overall aim was to focus on topics that have seen particularly interesting progress over the past few years and/or are generating strong interest now and seem set for important progress soon. We are grateful to several experts in the field who provided advice on topic selection but particularly to Luisa Iruela-Arispe, whose input helped initiate the project about a year ago. The subject coverage is not comprehensive and it is not intended to be, but even from this selection of articles it is clear that there are several areas of vascular biology where projects with different aims intersect and where insights from one aspect are proving relevant for another. All five articles will be freely accessible on the Developmental Cell website while the February issue is current, and of course like all of our content, they will again be freely accessible from one year after publication.Because of the vascular biology review feature, this month we are taking a break from our ongoing themed review series on signaling pathways. This series, which is the first in a new type of review collection for Developmental Cell, began in December 2008 with a review from Jin Jiang and Chi-chung Hui on Hedgehog signaling in development and cancer and continued in the January 2009 issue with an article from Lara Skwarek and Gabrielle Boulianne on phosphoinositide signaling in development and disease. We will restart the signaling series next month and will continue it for several months through the year. As the series progresses, we will also be gathering the articles it contains in a dedicated area on the Developmental Cell website to provide a ready reference point for the topics that we have covered.Although the subjects covered in both of these groups of reviews, and in other stand-alone articles that will appear over the course of the year, are varied, our overall aim is to cover the full breadth of the scope of Developmental Cell and thus illustrate the ways in which the fields of cell biology and developmental biology relate to each other and intersect. Some review articles focus on basic developmental biology or cell biology, for example, the Commentary by Julie Welburn and Iain Cheeseman on kinetochore structure in the October 2008 issue, but most are at the interface between the cell biology and development, such as the Reviews by Francesco Cecconi and Beth Levine on the role of autophagy in development in September 2008 and by Caroline Yi and Junying Yuan on nonapoptotic roles of caspases in January 2009. The articles in both the vascular biology feature and the ongoing signaling series, in fact, to my mind, provide a particularly good example of the combined focus, as almost all of them discuss both broad organismal processes and the cell biological mechanisms that underlie them.In 2009, we have also made a few adjustments to article types that appear in our review section. Instead of Commentary articles, we will now publish Perspectives that, like their Commentary predecessors, are intended to provide a forum for more opinionated and speculative discussion than is appropriate in a standard review. As well as the regular Review and Preview articles, we are also interested in Letters about topics relating to articles we have published or to broader issues in the community, such as the agreed outcome of committee discussions aimed at defining consistent nomenclature for a particular field. However, in response to overall feedback, we will be publishing fewer Meeting Reviews than we have in the past. We always welcome proposals for review articles or other review coverage, and these can be sent by email or using the new presubmission inquiry form on our website, which is appropriate for all types of potential submission.Last but not least, from next month there will also be some personnel changes in terms of our listed Reviews Editors. Joan Brugge, Norbert Perrimon, and Cliff Tabin, who have been Reviews Editors since 2001, will be adopting a new role. Their input, along with that of Phil Ingham, who was a member of the team until the end of 2003, was instrumental in giving the journal a strong start in coverage of many important issues in the field. Several of the Reviews we published in the first few years under their guidance are still being downloaded frequently (and thus presumably also read!). However, all three are unfortunately now finding that their numerous other commitments mean that their role on Developmental Cell needs to change. We are very happy that they have all agreed to transfer to the Editorial Board and that we will therefore still be able to count on their advice and counsel in that capacity.The Developmental Cell in-house editorial team remain committed to publishing high-quality review material that makes a positive contribution to communication of research advances. Our repertoire is broadened further by our association with the Trends family of journals, and we will continue to highlight relevant articles from Trends journals on our website. We hope you will enjoy and benefit from considering the issues that we cover. As always, we look forward to hearing from you with feedback and suggestions about our review material or any other aspect of Developmental Cell.