Isomangiferin was isolated from Cyclopia subternata using a multi-step process including extraction, liquid-liquid partitioning, high-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) and semi-preparative reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Enrichment of phenolic compounds in a methanol extract of C. subternata leaves was conducted using liquid-liquid partitioning with ethy...

Objective Holoprosencephaly (HPE) is the most common forebrain developmental anomaly in humans with prevalence of 1/ 16, 000 in live borns that results from a failure of prosencepholon cleavage. In most of the cases, due to defective primordial mesenchyme, facial anomalies are observed like cyclopia, proboscis, median or bilateral cleft lip/palate in severe forms, ocular hypotelorism or solitar...

This review provides a synthesis that combines data from classical experimentation and recent advances in our understanding of early eye development. Emphasis is placed on the events that underlie and direct neural retina formation and lens induction. Understanding these events represents a longstanding problem in developmental biology. Early interest can be attributed to the curiosity generate...

Genetic analyses in Drosophila have demonstrated that the multipass membrane protein Smoothened (Smo) is essential for all Hedgehog signaling. We show that Smo acts epistatic to Ptc1 to mediate Shh and Ihh signaling in the early mouse embryo. Smo and Shh/Ihh compound mutants have identical phenotypes: embryos fail to turn, arresting at somite stages with a small, linear heart tube, an open gut ...

Holoprosencephaly (HPE) is a common developmental defect of the human forebrain and midface. Pathological studies have identified different categories of severity of the brain and craniofacial malformations observed in HPE, although the variable clinical spectrum of HPE extends in unbroken sequence from alobar HPE and cyclopia to clinically unaffected carriers in familial HPE. The etiology of H...

Decorin, an archetypal member of the small leucine-rich proteoglycan gene family, regulates collagen fibrillogenesis and cell growth. To further explore its biological function, we examined the role of Decorin during zebrafish development. Zebrafish Decorin is a chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan that exhibits a high degree of conservation with its mammalian counterpart and displays a unique spat...

The hedgehog signaling pathway is a mechanism that regulates cell growth and differentiation [4] during embryonic development, called embryogenesis [5], in animals. The hedgehog signaling pathway works both between cells and within individual cells. The hedgehog gene ( hh) was observed in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster [6]) in 1980, and later in vertebrates in 1993. Unlike flies, which ha...

X-RADIATION is one of the most powerful agents in causing embryonic malformations and has been used recently by many investigators. Among various kinds of radiation malformations, those of the brain have been of special interest. Job, Leibold, & Fitzmaurice (1935), Kaven (1938), Warkany & Schraffenberger (1947), Russell (1950), Hicks (1953,1954), Wilson & Karr (1951), Wilson, Jordan, & Brent (1...

On Thursday, 16 June, 2011 a two months old male Kano brown goat was presented to the Niger State Veterinary Hospital, Bosso-Minna with multiple facial abnormalities. History revealed that the flock did not have antecedents of malformations or apparent reasons that induced the abnormalities. Phenotypical examination revealed that the goat could have been under the influence of some teratogen or...