The pharyngeal mesoderm of developing embryos contributes to broad regions of head and heart musculature. We have developed a novel method to study head and heart progenitor cell development with pharyngeal arches (also known as branchial arches) ex vivo. Using this method, we have recently described that the second pharyngeal arch contains self-renewing heart progenitors and serves as a microe...

We report on a Brazilian mother and her son affected with mandibulofacial dysostosis, growth and mental retardation, microcephaly, first branchial arch anomalies, and cleft palate. To date only three males and one female, all sporadic cases, with a similar condition have been reported. This article describes the first familial case with this rare condition indicating autosomal dominant or X-lin...

During embryogenesis, paraxial mesoderm cells contribute skeletal muscle progenitors, whereas cardiac progenitors originate in the lateral splanchnic mesoderm (SpM). Here we focus on a subset of the SpM that contributes to the anterior or secondary heart field (AHF/SHF), and lies adjacent to the cranial paraxial mesoderm (CPM), the precursors for the head musculature. Molecular analyses in chic...

The vertebrate neural crest is a pluripotent cell population derived from the lateral ridges of the neural plate during early stages of embryogenesis. Neural crest cells disperse from the dorsal surface of the neural tube and migrate extensively through the embryo, giving rise to a wide variety of differentiated cell types (Romer, 1972; Noden, 1983; Tan and Morriss-Kay, 1986; Bronner-Fraser, 19...

Loss of Twist function in the cranial mesenchyme of the mouse embryo causes failure of closure of the cephalic neural tube and malformation of the branchial arches. In the Twist(-/-) embryo, the expression of molecular markers that signify dorsal forebrain tissues is either absent or reduced, but those associated with ventral tissues display expanded domains of expression. Dorsoventral organiza...