| Budget Amount *help |
¥7,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥7,200,000)
Fiscal Year 2000: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000)
Fiscal Year 1999: ¥2,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,400,000)
Fiscal Year 1998: ¥3,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,700,000)
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| Research Abstract |
To accomplish animal morphogenesis correctly, cells in the embryo must know where they are. In 1952, Turing presented an epoch-making mathematical model to answer the question. His idea, called the reaction-diffusion model, explains the autonomous creation of the positional information in the animal body. In spite of the mathematical beauty of the model, few experimental biologists had paid attentions to the model for more than 40 years because of the lack of biological evidence. In 1995, we (Kondo et al) have found that the pattern alteration of some fish is predictable by the Turing model, that is the first reliable evidence for the Turing pattern in the field of biology. In this research project, we aimed to identify the molecular identity of the hypothetical molecular reaction.
Results
1. To know how general is the phenomena found in the skin of marine angelfish (Pomacanthus), we investigate the time course of the skin pattern alteration with some other fish and other vertebrates. We found that the several species of fish, frog, lizart have skin patterns changing in the manner that Turing's model predicts. It is highly possible that skin patterns of vertebrates are made by the common mechanism, the reaction-diffusion system.
2. To get the information about the genetic control of the skin pattern of zebrafish, we made the hybrid fish between the skin pattern mutant lines.
One of the significant results came from the crosses of leopard gene mutants. All the different skin patterns of the alleles and hybrids are predictable by the computer simulation based on the Turing model. The leopard gene must be one of the core element of the Turing reaction. We are now planning to isolate the gene.
3. Recently we found that the skin pattern of a catfish (plecostoms) can be changed by the stimulation of some organic solvents. This finding makes it possible to find directly the chemicals that affect the reaction-diffusion.
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