Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:40:03.779Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Evolution and development of teeth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2001

MELANIE McCOLLUM
Affiliation:
Department of Anatomy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
PAUL T. SHARPE
Affiliation:
Department of Craniofacial Development, GKT Dental Institute, Kings College London, UK
Get access

Abstract

Teeth as a feeding mechanism in an oral cavity (mouth) are functionally and locationally linked with jaws. In fossils, teeth found in the oral cavity are usually linked with jaws, although mineralised structures with the same histology as teeth are known in fossils before jaws appeared. Denticles in the skin occur in both fossil and extant fish. Pharyngeal denticles also occur in both extant and fossil gnathostomes but in only a few fossil agnathans (thelodonts). Complex structures with dentine and enamel have been described in the earliest jawless vertebrates, conodonts. Such fossils have been used to suggest that teeth and jaws have evolved and developed independently. Our understanding of the developmental biology of mammalian tooth development has increased greatly in the last few years to a point where we now understand some of the basic genetic interactions controlling tooth initiation, morphogenesis and patterning. The aim of this review is to see what this developmental information can reveal about evolution of the dentition.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)