Application Of BrdU Label Technique For Studying Proliferating Cells In RA-induced Cleft Palate In Mouse

Cleft of palate (CP) is one of the most common birth defects in humans. It is hard to tell the exact mechanism because many factors are involved. The role of crucial factors including the proliferation and apoptosis of medial edge epithelial (MEE) cells and embryonic palatal mesenchyme (EPM) cells is an essential event in palatogenesis and its failure can result in cleft palate. Retinoic acid (RA) is a kind of drug with distinct teratogenic action. Now RA is used to therapy skin disease and leucocythemia since it can induce cell differentiation. It is known that RA can induce cell apoptosis and inhibition of cell proliferation, but the data are all about tumor cells and it has not been confirmed whether RA has a similar effect on embryonic cells especially on medial edge epithelial (MEE) cells and embryonic palatal mesenchyme (EPM) cells.Bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) uses nucleotide substitution to replace thymidine with uridine in the DNA structure of dividing cells both in vitro and in vivo . BrdU has been utilised in a number of in vitro and in vivo studies to label a variety of cellular sources from human olfactory epithelium and neural progenitors to neural stem cells.Objective: To study the effect of retinoic acid on cell proliferation of palatal shelve by bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) labeling. Furthermore, analysis of cells proliferation in retinoic acid (RA)-induced cleft palate mouse to discover the mechanism of cleft palate.Methods: Female C57BL/6J mice about 10 weeks of age were housed overnight with male C57BL/6J mice and checked for vaginal plugs the next...