ArticleBMC biology2008
The molecular basis of defective lens development in the Iberian mole.
Article in BMC biology, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Subterranean Traits of the Visual System in Mandarin Voles (Lasiopodomys mandarinus): Structural Remodeling and Functional Degeneration.Integrative zoology · 2026Article
- Parallel sensory compensation following independent subterranean colonization by groundwater salamanders (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Unearthing the secrets of Australia's most enigmatic and cryptic mammal, the marsupial mole.Science advances · 2025Article
- Molecular and morphological evidence for a new species of the genusZoological research · 2021Article
- Comparative development and ocular histology between epigean and subterranean salamanders (PeerJ · 2021Article
- Limited Evidence for Parallel Molecular Adaptations Associated with the Subterranean Niche in Mammals: A Comparative Study of Three Superorders.Molecular biology and evolution · 2018Article
- Article
- Getting a head in hard soils: Convergent skull evolution and divergent allometric patterns explain shape variation in a highly diverse genus of pocket gophers (Thomomys).BMC evolutionary biology · 2016Article
- AP-2α is required after lens vesicle formation to maintain lens integrity.Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists · 2014Article
- Eye development in the Cape dune mole rat.Development genes and evolution · 2014Article
- Expression of truncated PITX3 in the developing lens leads to microphthalmia and aphakia in mice.PloS one · 2014Article
- Activation of the hedgehog signaling pathway in the developing lens stimulates ectopic FoxE3 expression and disruption in fiber cell differentiation.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2012Article
- Development of the cornea of true moles (Talpidae): morphogenesis and expression of PAX6 and cytokeratins.Journal of anatomy · 2010Article
- Article
- Retinal development and function in a 'blind' mole.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2010Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundFossorial mammals face natural selection pressures that differ from those acting on surface dwelling animals, and these may lead to reduced visual system development. We have studied eye development in a species of true mole, the Iberian mole Talpa occidentalis, and present the molecular basis of abnormal lens development. This is the first embryological developmental study of the eyes of any fossorial mammal at the molecular level.
resultsLens fibre differentiation is not completed in the Iberian mole. Although eye development starts normally (similar to other model species), defects are seen after closure of the lens vesicle. PAX6 is not down-regulated in developing lens fibre nuclei, as it is in other species, and there is ectopic expression of FOXE3, a putative downstream effector of PAX6, in some, but not all lens fibres. FOXE3-positive lens fibres continue to proliferate within the posterior compartment of the embryonic lens, but unlike in the mouse, no proliferation was detected anywhere in the postnatal mole lens. The undifferentiated status of the anterior epithelial cells was compromised, and most of them undergo apoptosis. Furthermore, beta-crystallin and PROX1 expression patterns are abnormal and our data suggest that genes encoding beta-crystallins are not directly regulated by PAX6, c-MAF and PROX1 in the Iberian mole, as they are in other model vertebrates.
conclusionIn other model vertebrates, genetic pathways controlling lens development robustly compartmentalise the lens into a simple, undifferentiated, proliferative anterior epithelium, and quiescent, anuclear, terminally differentiated posterior lens fibres. These pathways are not as robust in the mole, and lead to loss of the anterior epithelial phenotype and only partial differentiation of the lens fibres, which continue to express 'epithelial' genes. Paradigms of genetic regulatory networks developed in other vertebrates appear not to hold true for the Iberian mole.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.