Emergence of differentially regulated pathways associated with the development of regional specificity in chicken skin.

Background: Regional specificity allows different skin regions to exhibit different characteristics, enabling complementary functions to make effective use of the integumentary surface. Chickens exhibit a high degree of regional specificity in the skin and can serve as a good model for when and how these regional differences begin to emerge.

Results: We used developing feather and scale regions in embryonic chickens as a model to gauge the differences in their molecular pathways.