Formation of oral and pharyngeal dentition in teleosts depends on differential recruitment of retinoic acid signaling.

ABSTRACT: One of the goals of evolutionary developmental biology is to link specific adaptations to changes in developmental pathways. The dentition of cypriniform fishes, which in contrast to many other teleost fish species possess pharyngeal teeth but lack oral teeth, provides a suitable model to study the development of feeding adaptations. Here, we have examined the involvement of retinoic acid (RA) in tooth development and show that RA is specifically required to induce the pharyngeal tooth developmental program in zebrafish. Perturbation of RA signaling at this stage abolished tooth induction without affecting the development of tooth-associated ceratobranchial bones. We show that this inductive event is dependent on RA synthesis from aldh1a2 in the ventral posterior pharynx. Fibroblast growth

SUBMITTER: Gibert Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2923347 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature