Cleft palate is a relatively common birth defect arising when the palatal shelves growing from the maxilla (upper jaw) fail to meet and fuse. Understanding this developmental process may help early diagnosis and avoid the costs and pain of the repeated surgeries needed for repair. The directional growth of the palatal shelves requires tissue stiffness and is linked with changes in cell spacing. These properties implicate extracellular matrix (ECM) as critical, but the ECMs structure and material properties are poorly understood.
1. Using mouse models,
2. Establish the presence/absence of fibrillar ECM structures in elevating palatal tissue (Year1).
3. Establish cellular dynamics of directional growth and its ECM-dependence in vivo and in live explants (Years1+2)
4. Charactise collagen function in palate tissue stiffness using mouse knockouts (Year 3)
Advanced microscopy (2-photon second harmonic imaging), live imaging, AFM, FEM, microdissection, anatomy, mouse genetics.