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???displayArticle.abstract??? Dan is the founding member of the Dan family of secreted cytokines. All members of this family--which includes Gremlin, Cerberus, Dante, PRDC, and several genes identified as expressed sequence tags in the mouse--characterized to date have been shown to antagonize signaling by the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) family. During mouse embryogenesis, Dan is expressed in a restricted and dynamic pattern. Major sites of transcription include the somites, the myotome and the cranial, and facial and limbmesenchyme. Xenopus Dan (XDan) shares over 76% amino acid identity with mouse Dan (mDan). Here we report that in Xenopus embryos, XDan is expressed both as a maternal transcript and at later stages in populations of cells associated with the cranial and trunk neural crest. The conservation of Dan expression in cells of the headmesenchyme between Xenopus and mouse embryos suggests an important role for BMP antagonists in these tissues.
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11520677 ???displayArticle.link???Mech Dev
Fig. 2. Localization of XDan expression by whole-mount in situ hybridization. Except in (A,B,I,L) embryos were cleared with benzyl benzoate/benzyl alcohol. (A,B) Localization of maternal XDan transcripts (in each panel the top pair was probed for XDan while the bottom pair was probed with a sense control to access background staining). (A) Maternal XDan transcripts in stage VI oocytes. (B) Maternal transcripts in stage 3 embryos. (C) Lateral view of stage 25 embryos. (D) Dorsal view of stage 25 embryos. (E) Lateral view of stage 30 embryos. (F) Close up of stage 30 embryo showing XDan expression in derivatives of the cranial neural crest. (G) Horizontal section through the head and foregut of stage 30 embryo. Note that XDan expression is apparent in both superficial and underlying levels of the mandibular, hyoid, and branchial arches. (H) XDan expression in the finmesenchyme of stage 38 embryo. (I) Lateral view of XDan expression in uncleared stage 38 embryo illustrating weak expression in the chevron-shaped ventral migration pathways of trunk neural crest. (J) Lateral view of XDan expression in the head of stage 38 embryo. (K) Horizontal section passing directly through the eye of a stage 38 embryo. (L) Dorsal view of stage 38 trunk. b, Brain; br, branchial arches; ev, eye vesicle; ha, hyoid arch; m, midbrain; ma, mandibular arch; mcs, mandibular crest segment; mh, midbrain–hindbrain boundary; ov, otic vesicle; t, trunk neural crest.
