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Limbs move beyond the Radical fringe

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Abstract

The fringe genes and the Notch signalling pathway are important in limb development in vertebrates and in Drosophila,helping to establish the ‘organizing centres’ that are required for the proximal-distal outgrowth of appendages1,2,3,4,5,. Three vertebrate Fringe genes have been identified: Manic (Mfng), Lunatic (Lfng) and Radical fringe (Rfng)4,5,6,7,8,. Here we show that the mouse Rfng gene is not required for limb development, even though it is expressed in the developing limb bud. But we have found that several developmental defects, which at first we attributed to a loss of Rfng function after mutating the gene, in fact arose as a result of the insertion of a selection cassette into the Rfng locus that affects the expression of a neighbouring gene or genes. Our findings highlight the need for optimization in designing mutant alleles to probe developmental processes9,10.

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Figure 1: Rfng is expressed in the mouse limb bud and is not required for limb development.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Biology, Lewis Thomas Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, 08544, New Jersey, USA

    Jennifer L. Moran, John M. Levorse & Thomas F. Vogt

Authors
  1. Jennifer L. Moran
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  2. John M. Levorse
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  3. Thomas F. Vogt
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Moran, J., Levorse, J. & Vogt, T. Limbs move beyond the Radical fringe. Nature 399, 742–743 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/21560

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