Embryonic development follows delicate stages: For everything to go well, many genes must coordinate their activity according to a very meticulous scheme and tempo. This precision mechanism sometimes fails, leading to more or less disabling malformations. By studying the Pitx1 gene, one of the genes involved in the construction of the lower limbs, a team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in Switzerland, has discovered how a small disturbance in the activation process of this gene is at the origin of clubfoot, a common foot malformation.
Click here for original story, A missing genetic switch at the origin of embryonic malformations
Source: Phys.org