Acute hand infections and surgical treatment.

Hand infection is a common and frequent problem encountered by surgeons in their outpatient clinics. The causes are varied, ranging from trauma to surgical intervention and to the spread of infection from elsewhere on the body. The causative agents of infection are also varied, and although bacteria are the most common ones, viruses, fungi, and, of course, the problem of diagnosis after parasite infestation as well as rare causes of infections must also be considered.

Sequential Shh expression in the development of the mouse upper functional incisor.

The mouse incisor is a frequently used model in studies of the molecular control of organ development. The appropriate interpretation of data on normogenesis is essential for understanding the data obtained in mutant mice. For this reason, we performed a very detailed investigation of the development of the upper incisor in wild-type mice from embryonic day (ED) 11.

Shh expression in a rudimentary tooth offers new insights into development of the mouse incisor.

For teeth as for any organ, knowledge of normal development is essential for the proper interpretation of developmental anomalies in mutant mice. It is generally accepted that tooth formation is initiated with a single signaling center that, in the incisor region, is exclusively related to the development of the functional adult incisor. Here, using a unique combination of computer-aided three-dimensional reconstructions and whole mount in situ hybridization of mandibles from finely staged wild-type mouse embryos, we demonstrate that several Sonic hedgehog (Shh) expression domains sequentially appear in the lower incisor region during early development.