Investigation of organaizers in vertebrate craniofacial development

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Craniofacial development of vertebrates involves several tissue components of early stage embryos, ectoderm, neural tube, cranial neural crest cells, mesodem, foregut endoderm. To investigate the mechanism of craniofacial development provides us with not only understanding of craniofacial anomalies but also basic data for craniofacial reconstitution. Our current research results have suggested that the initiation and development of head organs requires spatio-temporal localization and interaction of these tissues:1 ) mandible arch formation requires the interaction between the oral ectoderm and posterior midbrain crest cell-derived mesenchyme at the proximooral part of the first pharyngeal arch;2) tooth bud formation begins where oral ectoderm, foregut endoderm and neural crest cells meet;3) Rathke's pouch is derived from the ectoderm which locates just anterior to the rostral part of the neural plate and later composes the stomodeal roof with foregut endoderm;4) mouse coronal and sagittal sutures are formed at a neural crest-mesoderm interface, and the initiation of skull vault bone osteogenesis coincides with the dynamic growth of cerebral hemispheres caudally. This supports the idea of organizing center that tissue boundary generates positional information for organogenesis, proposed by Meinhardt. Based on these results we are planning to clarify the mechanism of the interaction, key molecules of the events and regulation of their expression.