Cilia-mediated Hedgehog signaling controls form and function in the mammalian larynx
- University of Texas at Austin, United States
- Emory University, United States
- CNRS UMR3738, Institut Pasteur, France
- King's College London, United Kingdom
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, United States
Abstract
Acoustic communication is fundamental to social interactions among animals, including humans. In fact, deficits in voice impair the quality of life for a large and diverse population of patients. Understanding the molecular genetic mechanisms of development and function in the vocal apparatus is thus an important challenge with relevance both to the basic biology of animal communication and to biomedicine. However, surprisingly little is known about the developmental biology of the mammalian larynx. Here, we used genetic fate mapping to chart the embryological origins of the tissues in the mouse larynx, and we describe the developmental etiology of laryngeal defects in mice with disruptions in cilia-mediated Hedgehog signaling. In addition, we show that mild laryngeal defects correlate with changes in the acoustic structure of vocalizations. Together, these data provide key new insights in the molecular genetics of form and function in the mammalian vocal apparatus.
Article and author information
Author details
John B Wallingford
Funding
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- SE Roian Egnor
- John B Wallingford
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This work was performed by protocols approved by UT Austin (IACUC protocol # AUP-2015-00105) and by King's College London (Animal Use Protocol PPL 70/7441).
Copyright
© 2017, Tabler et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Cilia-mediated Hedgehog signaling controls form and function in the mammalian larynx
eLife 6:e19153.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.19153
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