Integrating developmental morphogenetic theory and dental biodistance practices

牙齿大小和形状的差异被用于各种方式，从重建物种之间的进化关系到在现代法医学案件中识别个人。因此，通过研究家谱中的牙列，我们了解牙齿大小和形状是如何遗传的，这是至关重要的。阿尔伯特·达尔伯格的牙模收藏是世界上最大的牙模收藏之一，由代表3000个人的7500个牙列组成。大多数个体位于已知的家谱中，因此研究人员可以探索牙齿特征如何在世代之间传递的遗传学。以前的收集工作有助于我们理解牙齿的遗传学、发育和进化；然而，这个档案的全部潜力从未被实现。发育生物学、遗传统计工具和软件以及3D扫描技术的最新进展现在允许以以前不可能实现的方式探索牙齿遗传学，同时扫描也将保存这一脆弱的资源，供子孙后代使用。该项目将从收集中记录一套全面的公制和非公制数据。使用这些数据，项目人员将使用大样本大小和复杂的统计模型来生成大量牙齿特征的遗传力估计。该项目还将探索牙齿特征如何推断进化关系，以及它们如何根据牙齿的相似性识别密切相关的个体。高精度铸型数字模型的传播将为研究人员提供必要的数据，以测试关于牙齿大小和形状如何被进化机制遗传和修改的一些假设。该项目将惠及人类学、发育生物学、古生物学、临床牙科和法医牙科。更大的意义是让远程研究人员能够广泛使用这些收集的数据，他们将能够在未来几代人中以目前未知的方式挖掘和分析数据。

Differences in the size and shape of teeth are used in a variety of ways, from reconstructing evolutionary relationships between species to identifying individuals in modern forensics cases. As such, it is critical that we understand how tooth size and shape are inherited by studying the dentition in family trees. The Albert Dahlberg collection of dental casts is one of the largest in the world and consists of 7500 dentitions representing 3000 individuals. Most individuals are situated in known family trees thus allowing the researchers to explore the genetics of how dental characteristics are passed between generations. Previous work on the collection has contributed to our understanding of dental genetics, development, and evolution; however, the full potential of this archive has never been realized. Recent advances in developmental biology, genetic statistical tools and software, and 3D scanning technology now permit an exploration of tooth genetics in ways not previously possible, while scanning will also preserve this fragile resource for use by future generations. The project will record a comprehensive set of metric and nonmetric data from the collection. Using these data, project staff will generate heritability estimates for a large number of dental features using large sample sizes and complex statistical models. The project will also explore how dental features infer evolutionary relationships and how they identify closely related individuals based on their dental similarities. The dissemination of highly accurate digital models of the casts will provide researchers with the needed data to test a number of assumptions about how tooth size and shape are inherited and modified by evolutionary mechanisms. The project will benefit anthropology, developmental biology, paleontology, clinical dentistry and forensic dentistry. The larger significance is making this collection widely available to remote researchers, who will be able to mine and analyze the data in currently unknown ways for generations to come.