Evo-Devo Regulation and Coordination of Vertebrate Dentitions and Jaws

当然，吃饭是生存的必要条件。驱动灵长类、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头部功能和结构的情况下出现的（例如，牙齿和下巴，保持他们）。为了进食、狩猎，并最终生存下来养育后代，动物的牙齿和颌骨必须在正确的时间、正确的地点正常发育。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。在一些物种中，包括人类，牙齿和颌骨对于进食以外的功能也很重要，例如发出声音和面部表情。此外，人类牙齿和颌骨的进化可能与文化进化有关，特别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相互影响的程度，以及发育和进化。我和我的学员将使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的突变导致颌骨中牙齿发育失败。通过实验“从等式中删除牙齿”，我们已经首次确定了一个似乎调节牙齿形成的基因网络，而对下颌骨的形成几乎没有影响。这种基因网络可以让牙齿进化，而不会对颌骨造成致命的变化。现在，我们试图确定这些感兴趣的基因在胚胎牙齿中的确切位置和时间，以及网络中的哪些基因直接或间接地相互交流，并由基因组指导。

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