To determine the possible role of Wnt signaling in cranial placode development, we have cloned several chick frizzled genes, a family of putative Wnt receptor molecules, and analyzed their expression during chick embryogenesis. Chick frizzled-2 (cFz-2) and frizzled-7 (cFz-7) are expressed broadly in cranial ectoderm, tissue that is competent to express markers of the trigeminal placode (Stark e...