The integration of quantitative genetics, paleontology, and neontology reveals genetic underpinnings of primate dental evolution.

ABSTRACT: Developmental genetics research on mice provides a relatively sound understanding of the genes necessary and sufficient to make mammalian teeth. However, mouse dentitions are highly derived compared with human dentitions, complicating the application of these insights to human biology. We used quantitative genetic analyses of data from living nonhuman primates and extensive osteological and paleontological collections to refine our assessment of dental phenotypes so that they better represent how the underlying genetic mechanisms actually influence anatomical variation. We identify ratios that better characterize the output of two dental genetic patterning mechanisms for primate dentitions. These two newly defined phenotypes are heritable with no measurable pleiotropic effects. When we con

SUBMITTER: Hlusko LJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4995955 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature