Animal models of ventral body wall closure defects: a personal perspective on gastroschisis.

Malformations affecting the ventral body wall comprise one of the leading categories of human birth defects. Gastroschisis is a particularly important body wall closure defect as its incidence is rising worldwide. Although the occurrence of such defects is relatively common their molecular and cellular basis is very poorly understood. A robust animal model system to study the etiology of gastroschisis would be very useful, but several problems currently hamper the identification of such a model. A concerted effort is required to recognize, characterize, and classify ventral body wall defects in animal model species so that progress can be made in determining the mechanisms of ventral body wall closure during human development as well as combating the increased incidence of gastroschisis worldwide.