Gritli-Linde Amel
Department of Oral Biochemistry, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden.
Front Oral Biol. 2012;16:32-51. doi: 10.1159/000337523. Epub 2012 Jun 25.
Vertebrate and invertebrate model organisms are essential for deciphering biological processes. One of these, the mouse, proved to be a valuable model for understanding the etiopathogenesis of a vast array of human diseases, including congenital malformations such as orofacial clefting conditions. This small mammal's usefulness in cleft lip and palate research stems not only from the striking anatomical and molecular similarities of lip and palate development between human and mouse embryos, but also from its amenability to experimental and genetic manipulation. Using some recent studies as illustrative examples, this review describes different ways of generating and exploiting mouse models to study normal and abnormal development of the lip and palate. Despite a few surmountable disadvantages of using the mouse, numerous mutants have revealed a growing number of molecular key players and have pointed at a tight and complex molecular control during each step of lip and palate development.
脊椎动物和无脊椎动物模式生物对于解读生物过程至关重要。其中之一，小鼠，已被证明是理解大量人类疾病病因发病机制的宝贵模型，包括诸如口腔颌面部裂等先天性畸形。这种小型哺乳动物在唇腭裂研究中的实用性不仅源于人类和小鼠胚胎唇腭发育在解剖学和分子层面的显著相似性，还源于其易于进行实验和基因操作。以一些近期研究为例，本综述描述了生成和利用小鼠模型来研究唇腭正常和异常发育的不同方法。尽管使用小鼠存在一些可克服的缺点，但众多突变体已揭示出越来越多的分子关键参与者，并表明在唇腭发育的每个阶段都存在紧密而复杂的分子控制。
