Periderm cells covering palatal shelves have tight junctions and their desquamation reduces the polarity of palatal shelf epithelial cells in palatogenesis.

In palatogenesis, bilateral palatal shelves grow and fuse with each other to establish mesenchyme continuity across the horizontal palate. The palatal shelves are covered with the medial edge epithelium (MEE) in which most apical cells are periderm cells. We investigated localization and roles of tight junction (TJ) and adherens junction (AJ) components and an apical membrane marker in the MEE in palatogenesis.

Sox9 expression during fracture repair.

The molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in bone development provide an insight into the nature of bone regeneration. Sox9 is a key transcription factor for chondrogenesis and is also expressed in osteochondroprogenitors during embryonic bone development. However, it has not been determined whether Sox9-expressing cells appear during fracture repair other than in the cartilaginous callus.

Runx1 is involved in the fusion of the primary and the secondary palatal shelves.

Runx1 is expressed in medial edge epithelial (MEE) cells of the palatal shelf. Conditionally rescued Runx1(-/-) mice showed limited clefting in the anterior junction between the primary and the secondary palatal shelves, but not in the junction between the secondary palates. In wild type mice, the fusing epithelial surface exhibited a rounded cobblestone-like appearance, while such cellular prominence was less evident in the Runx1 mutants.

Diclofenac inhibits proliferation and differentiation of neural stem cells.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are widely used in clinical situations as anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antipyretic drugs. However, it is still unknown whether NSAIDs have effects on the development of the central nervous system. In the present study, we investigated the effects of NSAIDs on neural stem cell (NSC) proliferation and differentiation into neurons.