Newswise — The regulation of cell movements are essential for the proper development of embryos, and defects in the process can result in a variety of birth defects, including spina bifida and cleft palate, according to a report by researchers at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, the Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute and three other collaborating institutions.
The findings of the research report, titled "p38 and a p38-Interacting Protein Are Critical for Downregulation of E-Cadherin During Mouse Gastrulation," will appear in the June 2 issue of the scientific journal Cell.
Researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine at UCDHSC, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Sloan-Kettering Institute, The Scripps Research Institute, and New York University School of Medicine's Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine co-authored the report.
"An important step in the regulation of cell movements is to loosen the binding of cells to one another," agreed Irene Zohn, PhD and Lee Niswander, PhD, lead authors of the report. "This transition is required to allow embryonic cells to move."
Through their research, Niswander, Zohn and colleagues defined a functional pathway that regulates the transition of cells from non-motile to motile behaviors during very early development. Defects in the control of these early cell movements can result in problems in the formation of multiple organs during fetal development.
The University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center is one of three campuses in the University of Colorado system. Located in Denver and Aurora, Colo., the center includes schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry, a graduate school and a teaching hospital. For more information, visit the Web site at http://www.uchsc.edu
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