Evo-Devo Regulation and Coordination of Vertebrate Dentitions and Jaws

吃当然是生存的必要条件。推动灵长类动物、哺乳动物和脊椎动物进化研究的一个核心问题是，不同的头部大小和形状是如何在不损害重要的头部功能和结构（例如，牙齿和支撑它们的颌）的情况下出现的。为了进食、捕猎并最终存活下来养育后代，动物的牙齿和下颚必须在正确的时间、正确的位置发育。尽管它们对生存很重要，但协调牙齿和颌骨生长的发育-遗传过程仍然是一个谜。解释这些过程对于了解物种如何发展、进化和适应各种食物至关重要。在包括人类在内的一些物种中，牙齿和颌骨除了进食之外，还具有重要的功能，比如发声和面部表情。此外，人类牙齿和下颚的进化很可能与文化进化交织在一起，尤其是工具的使用和烹饪。我的nserc资助的研究项目的长期目标是确定牙齿和颌骨组织在多大程度上影响彼此的发育和进化。我和我的学员将用一个小鼠模型系统来研究这个问题，在这个模型系统中，基因p63的突变会导致下颌牙齿发育失败。通过实验“将牙齿从方程中剔除”，我们已经首次确定了一个基因网络，它似乎调节牙齿的形成，而实际上对下颌的形成没有影响。这种基因网络可以让牙齿进化，而不会危及颌骨的致命变化。现在，我们试图确定这些相关基因在胚胎牙齿中活跃的确切位置和时间，以及网络中的哪些基因直接或间接地相互交流，并由

Eating is of course essential to survival. A core question driving studies of primate, mammalian and vertebrate evolution is how different head sizes and shapes arose without compromising vital head functions and structures (e.g., teeth and the jaws that hold them). To eat, hunt, and ultimately survive to raise offspring, an animal’s teeth and jaws must develop properly in the right place, at the right time. Despite their importance for survival, the developmental-genetic processes that coordinate tooth and jaw growth remain a mystery. Explaining these processes is vital to understand how species develop, evolve and adapt to a variety of foods. In some species, including humans, teeth and jaws are also important for functions beyond eating, such as making sounds and facial expressions. Also, human tooth and jaw evolution is likely entwined with cultural evolution, notably tool-use and cooking. The long term objective of my NSERC-funded research program is to determine the extent to which dental and jaw tissues influence each other’s development and, putatively, evolution. My trainees and I will examine this question using a mouse model system where a mutation of the gene, p63, leads to the failure of teeth to develop in the jaw. By experimentally "removing teeth from the equation", already we have identified for the first time a network of genes that appear to regulate tooth formation with virtually no impact on lower jaw formation. This gene network could allow teeth to evolve without risking lethal change to the jaw skeleton. Now, we seek to determine exactly where and when these genes-of-interest are active in the embryonic tooth, and which genes in the network speak directly, or indirectly, to each other and are directed by the