Epithelial cell differentiation during stomach development.

Chicken stomach provides an extremely useful experimental system for the analysis of molecular nature of the morphogenesis and cytodifferentiation of digestive organs in vertebrates. We identified several genes of which expression is important for the normal development of the stomach. Especially, bone morphogenetic protein-2 is necessary for the mesenchymal action in inducing gland formation in the epithelium of the stomach. Some transcription factors such as cSox2 and cGATA5 are involved in the expression of embryonic chicken pepsinogen gene, a marker gene of stomach gland epithelial cells.