The developmental mechanism of tooth position in a non-model organism

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26650131
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Evolutionary biology
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: Hoso Masaki 京都大学, 白眉センター, 特定助教 (80557695)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 発生 / 非対称性 / 歯 / 爬虫類

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This project aimed to describe the developmental processes and the morphological details of the asymmetric dentition in the snail-eating snakes of the genus Pareas. Due to the limitation of sample availability, we were not able to show how the development of dental asymmetry proceeded. However, we obtained fine data on the dental development of corn snakes, Pantherophis guttatus, that have symmetric dentition and was used as a positive control. We identified when, where, and which genes expressed in the formation of tooth buds and how the expression patterns varied in space and time. These results revealed an unsubscribed aspect of snake biology. Moreover, these will help us to determine the developmental stages of pareid snakes to be observed in the future research. We also investigated interspecific difference of dentition asymmetry and dietary specialization between two sympatric species of Taiwanese pareid snakes and found their ecologically significant correlation.

Free Research Field

進化生物学