Identification of key factors for tooth development using spatial transcriptomics

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K21678
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 57:Oral science and related fields
• Research Institution: Okayama University
• Principal Investigator: Ono Mitsuaki 岡山大学, 医歯薬学域, 准教授 (60613156)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 辻 孝 国立研究開発法人理化学研究所, 生命機能科学研究センター, チームリーダー (50339131) ; 渡辺 亮 京都大学, 医学研究科, 特定准教授 (60506765)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-07-30 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 歯 / 再生 / scRNA-seq

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The mechanism of tooth development is still unknown, and understanding the early development of teeth is an important issue in the field of dentistry. We analyzed tooth development in detail using single cell RNA-seq analysis, which enables comprehensive analysis of gene expression at the single cell level, and spatial RNA-seq analysis, which enables comprehensive analysis of gene expression with spatial information. As a result, we succeeded in finding genes that are specifically expressed in the early development of teeth. We plan to analyze these genes in detail during early tooth development.

Free Research Field

組織再生

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

歯胚発生における運命決定メカニズムの解明は，歯科領域の基礎研究者，臨床家の夢であり，多くの研究者が挑戦してきたが，未だ達成されていない研究課題の一つであり，本研究でその一部が明らかになった．また，本研究手法は，上皮間葉相互作用にて生じる様々な臓器の発生に関わるマスター遺伝子同定法のモデルになりうると考える．