Editor's Summary
16 July 2009
A rethink on phocomelia
The congenital disorder phocomelia is a rare limb malformation that became more familiar in the 1960s as a side effect of the use thalidomide in pregnancy. Phocomelia is mimicked in developing chick limb buds exposed to X-irradiation, and studies of the chick model provided important evidence for the long-established progress zone model of limb development, in which fibroblast growth factor produced by the apical ectoderm ridge directs cell fate. New work, involving molecular analysis and lineage tracing, shows that X-irradiation-induced phocomelia is not a patterning defect as was thought, but results from a time-dependent loss of skeletal progenitors. This finding challenges the current model of phocomelia aetiology as well as the predictions of the progress zone model.
Authors: Abstractions
doi:10.1038/7253305b
Letter: A reevaluation of X-irradiation-induced phocomelia and proximodistal limb patterning
Jenna L. Galloway, Irene Delgado, Maria A. Ros & Clifford J. Tabin
doi:10.1038/nature08117
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (705K) | Supplementary information
