Tissue Interactions that Regulate Facial Morphogenesis

Molecular signaling among the forebrain, neural crest mesenchyme, and facial ectoderm regulate morphogenesis of the upper jaw. The forebrain and neural crest mesenchyme regulate expression of Sonic Hedgehog in the Frontonasal Ectodermal Zone (FEZ), which controls proximodistal extension and dorsoventral polarity of the upper jaw. The FEZ is highly conserved among vertebrates, but the spatial pattern of Shh expression is varied and highly correlated with the shape of the facial primordia in the developing upper jaw. In birds Shh expression spans the entire Frontonasal Process, while in mammals (human and mouse) Shh is restricted to lateral domains associated with the Median Nasal Processes. These expression patterns appear to result from molecular signals, including SHH itself, from the forebrain. From these observations we predicted that the signaling axis among the brain, mesenchyme, and ectoderm could be used to generate variation during evolutionary and disease processes. We have tested this by modulating SHH signaling in the brain of chick embryos to varying degrees and assessing facial shape using 3‐dimensional morphometrics and multivariate statistical analyses. This perturbation produced embryos with continuous phenotypic variation. The shape outcomes were highly correlated with SHH signaling, cell proliferation rates, and the organization of the FEZ in treated embryos. Further, these results revealed that phenotypic variation may result from non‐linear mechanisms by which signaling pathways operate. For instance, when the SHH pathway was blocked maximally, a highly penetrant phenotype resulted, while at lower levels of blockade the phenotypes rapidly returned to more normal shapes. Thus, large phenotypic variation was generated by small changes in receptor activation over certain ligand concentrations.