Tgfbr1 controls developmental plasticity between the hindlimb and external genitalia by remodeling their regulatory landscape.

ABSTRACT: The hindlimb and external genitalia of present-day tetrapods are thought to derive from an ancestral common primordium that evolved to generate a wide diversity of structures adapted for efficient locomotion and mating in the ecological niche occupied by the species. We show that despite long evolutionary distance from the ancestral condition, the early primordium of the mouse external genitalia preserved the capacity to take hindlimb fates. In the absence of Tgfbr1, the pericloacal mesoderm generates an extra pair of hindlimbs at the expense of the external genitalia. It has been shown that the hindlimb and the genital primordia share many of their key regulatory factors. Tgfbr1 controls the response to those factors by modulating the accessibility status of regulatory elements that contr

SUBMITTER: Lozovska A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10954616 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature