Animal models for studying neural crest development: is the mouse different?

In the latest issue of Development, Elias Barriga, Paul Trainor, Marianne Bronner and Roberto Mayor have contributed a Spotlight article that discusses conserved and non-conserved aspects of neural crest development across vertebrates, and highlights potential concerns or caveats regarding the use of the mouse for the analysis of early neural crest development. The piece raises a number of interesting issues, both from a technical point of view and from a broader evolutionary perspective.

As the article is relatively long, we have not reproduced it in full here (the abstract is copied below), but encourage interested readers to go to the Development website to access the full article for free. We also encourage you to leave any feedback you may have on the article in the comments section here.

Animal models for studying neural crest development: is the mouse different?

Elias H. Barriga, Paul A. Trainor, Marianne Bronner, and Roberto Mayor

The neural crest is a uniquely vertebrate cell type and has been well studied in a number of model systems. Zebrafish, Xenopus and chick embryos largely show consistent requirements for specific genes in early steps of neural crest development. By contrast, knockouts of homologous genes in the mouse often do not exhibit comparable early neural crest phenotypes. In this Spotlight article, we discuss these species-specific differences, suggest possible explanations for the divergent phenotypes in mouse and urge the community to consider these issues and the need for further research in complementary systems.

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