A molecular circuit integrates environmental cues to coordinate the exit from developmental dormancy

In Nothobranchius furzeri, a temporal transcriptional cascade and reduced transcriptional noise coordinate developmental reactivation from diapause, revealing the molecular logic of exit.

• Why it matters: Environmental cues must be integrated to time diapause exit for survival, but how embryos translate seasonal signals into reactivation timing is unclear.
• What they did: The study combined model-based single-embryo transcriptomics with transcriptomic-clock analysis and transcriptome-guided drug-enrichment, then ran a targeted chemical screen across two annual killifish clades.
• The result: Shared activators and inhibitors of diapause exit were identified, and functional assays support a model where HSP90 integrates temperature-dependent cues with steroid-hormone signaling.