Staying Connected

“10 fingers and 10 toes” is the classic refrain of a satisfied doctor after a healthy baby is born, but things aren’t always quite so clear cut. Syndactyly is a condition where two or more digits are fused together. It was previously believed that this resulted from insufficient removal of the connective tissue that exists between digits as they grow, but a new study has shown other factors are involved as well. By tracking the development of healthy mouse embryo feet (right) and those lacking the key gene GRHL3 (left), they observed that an outer skin forming around the growing digits plays an important separation role. This key factor helps the outer layer push between and un-stick each digit. GRHL3 also plays a role in Van der Woude syndrome, which is characterised by a cleft palate, and understanding how and why development goes awry might guide research into new treatments.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Video from work by Ghaidaa Kashgari and colleagues
• Department of Biological Chemistry, School of Medicine, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
• Video copyright held by Elsevier; reproduced here with permission
• Published in Developmental Cell, March 2020