|
Developmental Genetics of Craniofacial Shape in Mice
Led by Dr. Benedikt Hallgrimsson
This subproject focuses on developmental genetics and regulation of facial development in mice, which will potentially provide important insights into similar processes in humans.
This subproject is setting the stage for top-down functional approaches in which predicted phenotypic changes are induced through known genetic manipulations. Developmental biology tends to proceed bottom-up, from analysis of perturbations in specific genes to inferences about the developmental system.
Post-genomic biology is beginning to allow a true systems approach to understanding development and pathophysiology (Zhu et al., 2004) . The difficulty is in the complexity of translation from genetic to phenotypic variation. There are often multiple developmental paths to the same phenotype and multiple genetic paths to the same developmental variation (Weiss and Buchanan, 2003).
Dr. Hallgrímsson's team seeks to limit this complexity by focusing on a specific developmental process - mesenchymal cell proliferation during embryonic facial development. The power of this approach is the integration of genetic, development, and phenotypic levels in which the new 4D visual analysis system plays a key role. Results of this subproject will confirm, revise, or expand the view of genetic “toolkits” that generate phenotypic variation during craniofacial development.
|
Developmental Genetics of Craniofacial Shape in Mice