Hdac4 is Required by Early Cranial Neural Crest Cells for the Development of the Zebrafish Palate

Presenter: Vishesh Khanna, Biology

Palate deformities are one of the most common congenital birth defects. It is estimated that one in 1000 babies is born with either a cleft lip or a cleft palate. In 2006, single nucleotide polymorphisms in the gene HDAC4 were found to be linked to cleft palate-like defects in humans. In zebrafish, Morpholino-mediated knockdown of hdac4 results in cartilage abnormalities at 6 days post-fertilization, specifically a clefting of the skeletal elements in the roof of the zebrafish mouth. By using fluorescent in situ hybridization, we show that hdac4 knockdown results in the loss of a specific subset of neural crest cells that normally migrate deep to the eye rudiment. Based upon our findings in this animal model, we can propose that human cleft palate resulting from the HDAC4 mutation might ultimately be due to defects in a homologous subset of neural crest cells.