Establishment of palatal organ culture model of C57BL/6J mouse embryos in vitro.

PURPOSE: To establish palatal organ culture model of C57BL/6J mouse embryos in vitro and provide platform for study of embryo palatal development. METHODS: The mouse palatal shelves were harvested under sterilization from a female mouse of gestation day (GD) 13.5 by stereoscopic microscope and cultured in vitro. Totally 36 pairs of palatal shelves were divided into three groups equally and cultured 6 h, 24 h and 48 h, respectively. Finally, all palatal shelves were embedded and stained by Hematoxylin and Eosin (HE) and subjected to scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis. RESULTS: The results of HE dyeing showed that the palatal shelves did not fuse on 6 h group, and began to fuse on 24 h group, but still had some medial edge epithelial (MEE) cells remained. The palatal shelves completely fused and all the MEE cells disappeared on 48 h group. The results of SEM showed that there was a gap between palatal shelves on 6 h group. The palatal shelves began to contact and form the medial epithelial seam (MES) on 12 h group. Finally, palatal shelves completely fused and MES disappeared on 48 h group. CONCLUSION: This method provides an effective way for investigating the etiology of cleft palate in vitro. Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (81070817), Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2010HM054) and Science and Technology Planning Project of Qingdao City(08-2-1-5-nsh). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]