Chrysolophus Pictus Embryo Feather Hair Follicle Development And β-Catenin Expression In Embryonic Skin

Golden pheasant is famous ornamental bird in the world,whose feather is gorgeous. In recent years, Chrysolophus pictus is studied in many areas,such as genetics,anatomy,farming and ecology. The research of bird feather follicle is rare,so in this paper,the embryonic period of feather development morphology is studied. Immunohistochemical is used to study the expression of β-catenin at differnt stages of embryo dorsal skin, in order to provide necessary basis for the molecular mechanism of chrysolophus pictus feather hair follicle development and feather color diversity.(1)The cavity observation show that the fifth day of chrysolophus pictus embryo was covered by thin membrane,whose skin is smooth and transparent. Embryonic development to the ninth day, the head, legs, tail form protrusions, development on the eleventh day protrusions on the surface of the skin are more apparent and rising in numbers.The development of wing skin is slow, when the first ten days the protrusions are not obvious.The development of chest and abdominal skin is the slowest, at the eleventh day of embryo development can observe a few bumps from central axis of both sides.(2)The results of taining tissue sections show that in the embryonic period of the first eight days,head can only be observed in single epidermal cells, while the neck and back skin has been thickened, on the tenth day the skin of wing begin to thick. Most of feather follicles can be observed black feather bud on the eleventh day. Day 16 the feather follicle cavity disappear, then the feather fiber elongation and keratinization formed mature feather. No secondary feather follicles are observed in the process of skin development.(3)The results of immunohistochemical show that the β-catenin is expressing during the development of dorsal skin, illustrate that β-catenin plays an important role in feather follicle morphogenesis.