Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về sinh học được đăng trên tạp chí sinh học Journal of Biology đề tài: Fishing for the signals that pattern the face. | Journal of Biology Minireview Fishing for the signals that pattern the face Thomas F Schilling and Pierre Le Pabic Address Department of Developmental and Cell Biology 4462 Natural Sciences II University of California Irvine CA 92697-2300 USA. Correspondence Thomas F Schilling. Email tschilli@ Abstract Zebrafish are a powerful system for studying the early embryonic events that form the skull and face as a model for human craniofacial birth defects such as cleft palate. Signaling pathways that pattern the pharyngeal arches which contain skeletal precursors of the palate as well as jaws and gills are discussed in light of a recent paper in BMC Developmental Biology on requirements for Hedgehog signaling in craniofacial development. See research article http 1471-213X9 59 It has been over a century since the discovery that migratory cells of the neural crest give rise to the craniofacial skeleton unlike the vertebral and limb skeletons which are derived from embryonic mesoderm 1 . Despite the extraordinarily high frequency of cleft palate and other craniofacial problems in human birth defects the genetic control of this part of the skeleton remains mysterious. However recent identification of the genetic basis for many craniofacial syndromes combined with functional studies in animal models are beginning to illuminate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying skull development and its origins in the neural crest. Studies over the past few years including one by Schwend and Ahlgren 2 published recently in BMC Developmental Biology have taken advantage of the availability of zebrafish mutations that disrupt the skull to uncover genes that control its patterning in the early embryo. Moreover advances in the ability to create transgenic zebrafish have opened up new avenues for following neural crest cells in living embryos and thereby elucidating how genes control skull morphogenesis. Building the ventral skull anterior-posterior .
