Journal
DEVELOPMENTAL DYNAMICS
Volume 237, Issue 10, Pages 2643-2656Publisher
WILEY-LISS
DOI: 10.1002/dvdy.21599
Keywords
palate; medial epithelial seam; EMT; programmed cell death
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Funding
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DENTAL & CRANIOFACIAL RESEARCH [R01DE017986] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NIDCR NIH HHS [R01 DE017986, R01 DE017986-01A1] Funding Source: Medline
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Formation of the medial epithelial seam (MES) by palatal shelf fusion is a crucial step of palate development. Complete disintegration of the MES is the final essential phase of palatal confluency with surrounding mesenchymal cells. In general, the mechanisms of palatal seam disintegration are not overwhelmingly complex, but given the large number of interacting constituents; their complicated circuitry involving feedforward, feedback, and crosstalk; and the fact that the kinetics of interaction matter, this otherwise simple mechanism can be quite difficult to interpret. As a result of this complexity, apparently simple but highly important questions remain unanswered. One such question pertains to the fate of the palatal seam. Such questions may be answered by detailed and extensive quantitative experimentation of basic biological studies (cellular, structural) and the newest molecular biological determinants (genetic/dye cell lineage, gene activity, kinase/enzyme activity), as well as animal model (knockouts, transgenic) approaches. System biology and cellular kinetics play a crucial role in cellular MES function; omissions of such critical contributors may lead to inaccurate understanding of the fate of MES. Excellent progress has been made relevant to elucidation of the mechanism(s) of palatal seam disintegration. Current understanding of palatal seam disintegration suggests epithelial-mesenchymal transition and/or programmed cell death as two most common mechanisms of MES disintegration. In this review, I discuss those two mechanisms and the differences between them. Developmental Dynamics 237:2643-2656, 2008. (C) 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
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