introduction: fibrolipoma, a subtype of lipoma is painless, well-circumscribed, slow-growing, submucosal benign adipocyte tumour. it is uncommon in the oral cavity and oropharyngeal region, with rare incidence in the retropharynx even rarest in pediatric age group.   case report: a very unusual case of fibrolipoma is presented in a pediatric patient, who had a huge retropharyngeal fibrolipoma a...

Pharyngeal muscle development in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans appears to share similarities with cardiac muscle development in other species. We have previously described CEH-22, an NK-2 class homeodomain transcription factor similar to Drosophila tinman and vertebrate Nkx2-5, which is expressed exclusively in the pharyngeal muscles. In vitro, CEH-22 binds the enhancer from myo-2, a phar...

Optogenetic approaches have proven powerful for examining the role of neural circuits in generating behaviors, especially in systems where electrophysiological manipulation is not possible. Here we describe a method for optogenetically manipulating single pharyngeal neurons in intact C. elegans while monitoring pharyngeal behavior. This approach provides bidirectional and dynamic control of pha...

Pharyngeal teratomas are rare. We present a mature solid teratoma (so called “hairypolyp”) involving naso- and oro- pharynx in a female infant who presented with a gradually enlarging mass at the roof of the mouth since birth. The pharyngeal mass was protruding into the mouth through a palatine defect pr...

Caenorhabditis elegans nfi-1 belongs to the Nuclear Factor I (NFI) family of transcription factors known to regulate metazoan gene expression and development. We showed previously that loss of nfi-1 in worms results in multiple behavioral defects; slower pharyngeal pumping rate, impaired egg laying, defective motility, and a shortened life span. Here, we generated cell-type specific transgenic ...

The formation of posterior pharyngeal pouches is generally attributed to dysfunction of the cricopharyngeal sphincter. The reason for this dysfunction and its exact nature have not been established. Observations in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, suggested that an association exists between pharyngeal pouch and hiatus hernia. Barium studies performed in patients with a pharyngeal pouch us...