TY - JOUR T1 - FGF Signaling Regulates the Number of Posterior Taste Papillae by Controlling Progenitor Field Size A1 - Petersen, Camille I. A1 - Jheon, Andrew H. A1 - Mostowfi, Pasha A1 - Charles, Cyril A1 - Ching, Saunders A1 - Thirumangalathu, Shoba A1 - Barlow, Linda A. A1 - Klein, Ophir D. Y1 - 2011/06/02 N2 - Author Summary The sense of taste is important for an animal's ability to survive and thrive, because it enables discrimination between nutritious substances and toxins. Taste buds are housed largely on the tongue in structures called papillae; of the three types of gustatory papillae, the circumvallate papilla (CVP) is the largest. In rodents, a single CVP is located in the posterior midline of the tongue housing hundreds of taste buds, whereas in other mammals up to dozens of CVPs can be found. However, despite the great variation in the number of CVPs in mammals, its status as the largest of the taste papillae, and its importance in taste function, very little is known about its development. We identified members of the FGF signaling pathway as determinants of CVP number. We propose that perturbations to the FGF signaling pathway may have been involved in the dramatic differences in CVP number that arose during mammalian evolution. JF - PLOS Genetics JA - PLOS Genetics VL - 7 IS - 6 UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1002098 SP - e1002098 EP - PB - Public Library of Science M3 - doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002098 ER -