Research Project
Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
In the morphogenesis of organisms, we observe autonomous pattern formation based on the Reaction-Diffusion (R-D) model (Turing). We have reported that zebrafish skin pattern formation is based on the R-D model and aim to disclose the molecular mechanism in this pattern formation. We also have reported that gap junction is one of the most important factor for cell-cell interaction among pigment cells. In this study we analyzed gap junction genes of teleosts species including zebrafish. We found that connexin genes that are involved in skin pattern formation are highly conserved among teleosts and that they may function for Turing pattern formation.
