Misguided Development

When you’re trying to contain your anger, you may find your heart races and jaw clenches tight. Emotion connects these two seemingly disparate entities. However that isn’t all that links them. Researchers discovered that during development both the heart and jaw depend on the protein PDGFRalpha. Staining the cartilage (blue) of zebrafish with either normal (left) or mutant PDGFRalpha (middle and right) revealed that the mutants had defects in the structure of their jaws. Looking at their hearts revealed structural abnormalities here too, which resulted from the heart cells failing to move into their proper positions during development. This misdirection of cells also underlies the jaw defects. In both cases PDGFRalpha acts as a sensor, picking up chemical signals that tell the cells where to go. Whether navigating the developing heart or jaw, PDGFRalpha is needed to steer things in the right direction.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by Joshua Bloomekatz and colleagues
• Division of Biological Sciences, UC San Diego, CA, USA; and Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Australia
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, January 2017