Doctoral Dissertation Research: Deciduous Dental Phenotypes and Biodistance Analyses

牙齿是人体最耐用的部分，它提供有关个人生活的许多方面的信息，如饮食、身体健康和整个风景中的运动。牙齿还记录有关遗传联系的信息，这使它们对于研究人类人口关系和对失踪人员或事故/犯罪受害者的法医鉴定很有用。重要的是，由于牙齿保存在考古记录中，同样类型的信息可以为生活在过去的人重建。这项博士论文研究项目将探索人类乳牙(即10岁以下儿童的乳牙)的遗传基础，并开发仅使用牙齿识别儿童亲属的方法。该项目的主要理论基础是探索过去人类社会群体的动态。然而，这些结果也可能改善识别失踪儿童的法医工作，完善法医证据的数据收集标准，并提供与临床牙科和正畸相关的牙齿遗传信息。该项目还将支持学生的培训和国际合作的发展。该项目研究乳牙的遗传结构，并有三个目标：1)分析乳牙表型的发育程序，2)评估乳牙表型的表现，以准确重建已知的谱系关系，以及3)比较乳牙表型和恒牙表型的表现，以重建已知的谱系关系。有关牙齿大小和形态的数据将从代表已知谱系的个体的牙模上的乳牙和恒牙牙冠收集。从落叶牙齿数据中产生的生物距离将与个体之间的已知遗传距离进行比较，以确定如何利用落叶特征准确地重建家谱。这些生物距离也将与恒牙表型产生的生物距离以及由健康病史数据产生的“环境距离”进行比较，以检查影响牙冠形态的潜在发育和环境因素。

Teeth are the most durable parts of the human body and provide information on a number of aspects of an individual's life such as diet, physical health, and movement across the landscape. Teeth also record information on genetic relatedness, which makes them useful for research on human population relationships and forensic identification of missing persons or accident/crime victims. Importantly, because teeth preserve in the archaeological record, the same types of information can be reconstructed for people who lived in the past. This doctoral dissertation research project will explore the genetic underpinnings of the human deciduous dentition (i.e., "baby teeth" in children younger than 10 years of age) and develop methods for identifying child relatives using teeth alone. The project's primary rationale is to explore the dynamics of human social groups in the past. However, the results may also improve forensic efforts to identify missing children, refine data collection standards for forensic evidence, and provide information on dental inheritance relevant to clinical dentistry and orthodontics. The project will also support student training and development of international collaborations.This project examines the genetic structure of the deciduous dentition and has three goals: 1) to analyze the developmental program underlying deciduous dental phenotypes, 2) to evaluate the performance of deciduous dental phenotypes for accurately reconstructing known genealogical relationships, and 3) to compare the performance of deciduous versus permanent dental phenotypes for reconstructing known genealogical relationships. Data on tooth size and morphology will be collected from deciduous and permanent tooth crowns on dental casts representing individuals of known pedigree. Biological distances generated from deciduous dental data will be compared to known genetic distances between individuals to determine how deciduous traits can be used to accurately reconstruct genealogies. These biological distances will also be compared to those generated from permanent dental phenotypes as well as "environmental distances" generated from health history data to examine potential developmental and environmental factors that affect crown morphology.