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2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Heterochronic regulatry mechanisms of cranial neural crest development in marsupials

Research Project

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Project/Area Number 15K07070
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)

Allocation TypeMulti-year Fund
Section一般
Research Field Developmental biology
Research InstitutionTohoku University

Principal Investigator

WAKAMATSU YOSHIO  東北大学, 医学系研究科, 准教授 (60311560)

Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) 鈴木 久仁博  日本大学, 松戸歯学部, 特任教授 (30256903)
Project Period (FY) 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
Keywords哺乳類 / 進化 / ヘテロクロニー / 有袋類 / 神経堤 / 顎 / エンハンサー
Outline of Final Research Achievements

Marsupial neonates are immature at birth, compared to placentals. Since they must suckle on mother’s milk, their jaws develop early. Yet, underlying mechanisms regulating this temporal shift of developmental program is unknown. We have previously found that Sox9 expression is turned on early in the cranial neural crest of opossum embryos, compared to mouse ones, and that marsupial-specific sequence alteration in the neural crest enhancer of Sox9 is responsible, at least in part, for this temporal shift. In this study using quail embryos, we have found that Myb transcription factor, a neural-border specifier, activates the enhancer, while Wnt signaling, a neural crest inducer, does not. Aiming to perform similar experiments in opossum embryos/cells, our attempts of culturing opossum embryos, making iPS cells, or direct-reprograming of fibroblasts into neural crest cells all failed. Thus, technical improvements of these methods seem to be essential for future studies.

Free Research Field

発生生物学・進化生物学

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Published: 2019-03-29  

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