Endothelin signaling is essential for neural crest development, and dysregulated Endothelin signaling is associated with several neural crest-related disorders, including Waardenburg and other syndromes. However, despite the crucial roles of this pathway in neural crest development and disease, the transcriptional effectors directly activated by Endothelin signaling during neural crest developm...

The proper function of the craniofacial skeleton requires the proper shaping of many individual skeletal elements. Neural crest cells generate much of the craniofacial skeleton and morphogenesis of skeletal elements occurs in transient, reiterated structures termed pharyngeal arches. The shape of individual elements depends upon intrinsic patterning within the neural crest as well as extrinsic ...

Uveal melanoma is the most common intraocular malignancy in adults, representing between about 4% and 5% of all melanomas. High expression levels of Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase 4A3, a dual phosphatase, is highly predictive of metastasis development and PTP4A3 overexpression in uveal melanoma cells increases their in vitro migration and in vivo invasiveness. Melanocytes, including uveal melanoc...

Neural crest cells contribute extensively to vertebrate head morphogenesis and their origin is an important question to address in understanding the evolution of the craniate head. The distribution pattern of cephalic crest cells was examined in embryos of one of the living agnathan vertebrates, Lampetra japonica. The initial appearance of putative crest cells was observed on the dorsal aspect ...

Background Harvesting autograft bone from the ilium is not without complications. When cases are reported in follow-ups, investigators usually concentrate upon treatment outcome of the principle problems and not on the donor site morbidity from harvesting a bone graft. The purpose of our study is to assess the complications related to bone grafting site of iliac crest, simultaneously evaluation...

The proper assembly of craniofacial structures and the peripheral nervous system requires neural crest cells to emerge from the neural tube and navigate over long distances to the branchial arches. Cell and molecular studies have shed light on potential intrinsic and extrinsic cues, which, in combination, are thought to ensure the induction and specification of cranial neural crest cells. Howev...

Neural crest cells arise from the ectoderm and are first recognizable as discrete cells in the chicken embryo when they emerge from the neural tube. Despite the classical view that neural crest precursors are a distinct population lying between epidermis and neuroepithelium, our results demonstrate that they are not a segregated population. Cell lineage analyses have demonstrated that individua...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the detailed anatomy of the terminal crest (crista terminalis) and its junctional regions with the pectinate muscles and intercaval area to provide the yardstick for structural normality. DESIGN 97 human necropsy hearts were studied from patients who were not known to have medical histories of atrial arrhythmias. The dimensions of the terminal crest were measured in w...

Cranial neural crest cells migrate in a precisely segmented manner to form cranial ganglia, facial skeleton and other derivatives. Here, we investigate the mechanisms underlying this patterning in the axolotl embryo using a combination of tissue culture, molecular markers, scanning electron microscopy and vital dye analysis. In vitro experiments reveal an intrinsic component to segmental migrat...

Beta-catenin plays a pivotal role in cadherin-mediated cell adhesion. Moreover, it is a downstream signaling component of Wnt that controls multiple developmental processes such as cell proliferation, apoptosis, and fate decisions. To study the role of beta-catenin in neural crest development, we used the Cre/loxP system to ablate beta-catenin specifically in neural crest stem cells. Although s...