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Anthwal N, Urban DJ, Luo ZX, et al. Meckel's cartilage breakdown offers clues to mammalian middle ear evolution. Nat Ecol Evol. 2017;1(4):93doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0093.
Anthwal, N., Urban, D. J., Luo, Z. X., Sears, K. E., & Tucker, A. S. (2017). Meckel's cartilage breakdown offers clues to mammalian middle ear evolution. Nature ecology & evolution, 1(4), 93. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0093
Anthwal, Neal, et al. "Meckel's cartilage breakdown offers clues to mammalian middle ear evolution." Nature ecology & evolution vol. 1,4 (2017): 93. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0093
Anthwal N, Urban DJ, Luo ZX, Sears KE, Tucker AS. Meckel's cartilage breakdown offers clues to mammalian middle ear evolution. Nat Ecol Evol. 2017 Mar 06;1(4):93. doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0093. PMID: 28459103; PMCID: PMC5405799.
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Nat Ecol Evol. 2017 Mar 06;1(4):93. doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0093.

Meckel's cartilage breakdown offers clues to mammalian middle ear evolution.

Nature ecology & evolution

Neal Anthwal, Daniel J Urban, Zhe Xi Luo, Karen E Sears, Abigail S Tucker

Affiliations

  1. Department of Craniofacial Development and Stem Cell Biology, King's College London, London, UK.
  2. School of Integrative Biology, 505 S Goodwin Avenue, University of Illinois, Urbana IL USA.
  3. Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago IL USA.
  4. Carl Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, 1206 W Gregory Drive, University of Illinois, Urbana IL USA.

PMID: 28459103 PMCID: PMC5405799 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0093

Abstract

A key transformation in mammalian ear evolution was incorporation of the primary jaw joint of premammalian synapsids into the definitive mammalian middle ear of living mammals. This evolutionary transition occurred in two-steps, starting with a partial or "transitional" mammalian middle ear in which the ectotympanic and malleus were still connected to the mandible by an ossified Meckel's Cartilage (MC), as observed in many Mesozoic mammals. This was followed by MC breakdown, freeing the ectotympanic and the malleus from the mandible and creating the definitive mammalian middle ear. Here we report novel findings on the role of chondroclasts in MC breakdown, shedding light on how therian mammals lost MC connecting the ear to the jaw. Genetic or pharmacological loss of clast cells in mice and opossums leads to persistence of embryonic MC beyond juvenile stages, with MC ossification in mutant mice. The persistent MC causes a distinctive postnatal groove on the mouse dentary. This morphology phenocopies the ossified MC and Meckelian groove observed in Mesozoic mammals. Clast cell recruitment to MC is not observed in reptiles, where MC persists as a cartilaginous structure. We hypothesize that ossification of MC is an ancestral feature of mammaliaforms, and that a shift in the timing of clast cell recruitment to MC prior to its ossification is a key developmental mechanism for the evolution of the definitive mammalian middle ear in extant therians.

Conflict of interest statement

Author information The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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