Role of soft tissue and bone interactions in the developmental integration and modularity of the skull in neural crest-specific gap junction alpha-1 knockout mice.

Authors

Alyssa C Moore, Madeline Tourigny, Diana Quinonez, Kevin Barr, Matthew W Grol, Katherine E Willmore

Published in

Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007). Volume 309. Issue 11. Pages 3375-3396. Epub Dec 19, 2025.

Abstract

The vertebrate skull is composed of bones derived from neural crest cells and mesoderm. The evolutionary capacity of the skull has been linked, in part, to the emergence of neural crest cells; however, this increased capacity for evolutionary change requires that variation within neural crest- and mesoderm-derived bones remains partly autonomous. One way to assess whether tissue origin leads to discrete patterns of variation is through measures of morphological integration and modularity. In this study, we use a neural crest-specific gap junction alpha-1 (Gja1) knockout mouse model (Cx43cKO) to determine the effect of tissue origin on skull integration and modularity. Micro-computed tomography images obtained from embryonic, newborn, and 2-month Cx43cKO and wildtype (Cx43WT) mice were used to measure and compare skull shape, size, integration, and modularity between genotypes. To determine if the phenotypic differences observed between genotypes reflect Cx43 function, mRNA expression data for markers of bone differentiation were measured from the neural crest-derived frontal bones and mesoderm-derived parietal and occipital bones. We found that patterns of integration and modularity change over development and these changes correspond with differences in Cx43 expression throughout the lifespan. Most interestingly, the patterns of developmental integration and modularity we observed at birth were influenced most greatly by tissue interactions, rather than Cx43 expression in the bones. Ultimately, our findings highlight the power of experimental models for investigating integration and modularity and the importance of tissue interactions in skull development.

PMID:
41416847
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 27 Oct 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.