Differential tissue growth and cell adhesion alone drive early tooth morphogenesis: An ex vivo and in silico study
Fig 8
Anteror-posterior (AP) cervical loops tend to be shorter than bucco-lingual (BL) ones when the tooth germ at the initial conditions is longer in the AP axis than in the BL axis.
A-D, an example simulation with initial conditions that are longer in the AP axis respect to the BL axis, seen from different angles: oblique (A), frontal section (B), sagittal section (C) and from below (D). Differences in the length of the cervical loops between the AP sides and BL sides can be observed. Growth and adhesion parameters used: sepi = 0.063, ssup = 0.021, smes = 0.182, bee = 1.0, bes = 1.0, bem = 5.0, bss = 1.0, bmm = 5.0. E-H, an example simulation with initial conditions equally long in the AP and BL axes, seen from different angles: oblique (E), frontal section (F), sagittal section (G) and from below (H). It can be seen that in this case cervical loops have the same length on all sides. Growth parameters used: sepi = 0.37, ssup = 0.12, smes = 0.20, all adhesion parameters equal to 1. Only epithelium and suprabasal layer are shown. The colour code indicates the heigth (i.e. position in the Z axis).