Department of Craniofacial Biology and Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado Denver, 12801 East 17th Avenue, PO Box 6511, Aurora, CO 80045, USA.
Dev Biol. 2011 Jan 15;349(2):261-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2010.11.012. Epub 2010 Nov 16.
The canonical Wnt/β-catenin pathway is an essential component of multiple developmental processes. To investigate the role of this pathway in the ectoderm during facial morphogenesis, we generated conditional β-catenin mouse mutants using a novel ectoderm-specific Cre recombinase transgenic line. Our results demonstrate that ablating or stabilizing β-catenin in the embryonic ectoderm causes dramatic changes in facial morphology. There are accompanying alterations in the expression of Fgf8 and Shh, key molecules that establish a signaling center critical for facial patterning, the frontonasal ectodermal zone (FEZ). These data indicate that Wnt/β-catenin signaling within the ectoderm is critical for facial development and further suggest that this pathway is an important mechanism for generating the diverse facial shapes of vertebrates during evolution.
经典的 Wnt/β-连环蛋白通路是多个发育过程的重要组成部分。为了研究该通路在外胚层在面部形态发生过程中的作用，我们使用一种新型的外胚层特异性 Cre 重组酶转基因系生成了条件性β-连环蛋白小鼠突变体。我们的结果表明，在外胚层中消除或稳定β-连环蛋白会导致面部形态发生显著变化。同时，关键分子 Fgf8 和 Shh 的表达也发生了改变，这些分子在建立一个对于面部模式形成至关重要的信号中心——额鼻外胚层区（FEZ）中发挥作用。这些数据表明，外胚层中的 Wnt/β-连环蛋白信号对于面部发育至关重要，并进一步表明该途径是在进化过程中产生脊椎动物多样化面部形状的重要机制。
