Regulation of cellular behavior of cranial neural crest during medial cartilage formation of the skull base

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In this project, we analyzed the developmental origin of the prechordal chondrocranium, which act as the skull base in the head and midline skeleton in the face, and also investigated molecules that are involved in formation of the chondrocranium. By fate map analysis of cranial neural crest cells, the prechodal cranium is composed from three elements, the paired lateral cartilages, and the single medial cartilage. During medial cartilage formation, Foxd3, a transcription factor which regulates neural crest differentiation, was expressed in precursor cells of the cartilage. In addition, cells in the medial cartilage also expressed a carbohydrate chain, which is detected by peanut lectin (PNA). By contrast, expression of PNA-positive molecules on cells in the lateral cartilage was weak. These results suggest that the cells in the medial cartilage have distinct cellular properties from cells in the lateral cartilage.