Mammalian airways are highly ramified tree-like structures that develop by the repetitive branching of the lung epithelium into the surrounding mesenchyme through reciprocal interactions. Based on a morphometric analysis of the epithelial tree, it has been recently proposed that the complete branching scheme is specified early in each lineage by a programme using elementary patterning routines ...

The development of the chick face involves outgrowth of buds of tissue, accompanied by the differentiation of cartilage and bone in spatially defined patterns. To investigate the role of epithelial-mesenchymal interactions in facial morphogenesis, small fragments of facial tissue have been grafted to host chick wing buds to continue their development in isolation. Fragments of the frontonasal m...

Orofacial clefts are the most frequent craniofacial defects, which affect 1.5 in 1,000 newborns worldwide. Orofacial clefting is caused by abnormal facial development. In human and mouse, initial growth and patterning of the face relies on several small buds of tissue, the facial prominences. The face is derived from six main prominences: paired frontal nasal processes (FNP), maxillary prominen...

How do cartilaginous elements attain their characteristic size and shape? Two intimately coupled processes underlie the patterned growth of cartilage. The first is histogenesis, which entails the production of cartilage as a discrete tissue; the second is morphogenesis, which pertains to the origins of three-dimensional form. Histogenesis relies on cues that promote the chondrogenic differentia...

Scatter factor/hepatocyte growth factor (SF/HGF) is known to be involved in the detachment of myogenic precursor cells from the lateral dermomyotomes and their subsequent migration into the newly formed limb buds. As yet, however, nothing has been known about the role of the persistent expression of SF/HGF in the limb bud mesenchyme during later stages of limb bud development. To test for a pot...

Our previous work has suggested that transferrin is an important serum component for differentiation of the kidney. In this study we have analysed more closely the response of cultured mouse embryonic kidney to exogenous transferrin and the dependence of kidney tubule induction on transferrin. Our results show that transferrin causes a dose-dependent increase in cell proliferation in the differ...