Maintenance of Taste Organs Is Strictly Dependent on Epithelial Hedgehog/GLI Signaling.

ABSTRACT: For homeostasis, lingual taste papilla organs require regulation of epithelial cell survival and renewal, with sustained innervation and stromal interactions. To investigate a role for Hedgehog/GLI signaling in adult taste organs we used a panel of conditional mouse models to manipulate GLI activity within epithelial cells of the fungiform and circumvallate papillae. Hedgehog signaling suppression rapidly led to taste bud loss, papilla disruption, and decreased proliferation in domains of papilla epithelium that contribute to taste cells. Hedgehog responding cells were eliminated from the epithelium but retained in the papilla stromal core. Despite papilla disruption and loss of taste buds that are a major source of Hedgehog ligand, innervation to taste papillae was maintained, and not mis

SUBMITTER: Ermilov AN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5125561 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature