RNA seq data set of chick, quail, and duck mandibular primordia at embryonic stage (HH) 37

Jaws are among the most highly adapted and modified structures of vertebrates, and they facilitate complex behaviors like feeding, respiration, and vocalization. For this reason, precise developmental regulation of jaw length is crucial for survival. By comparing jaw development between white Pekin duck (Anas platyrhynchos domestica), Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica), and chick (Gallus gallus) we have shown in prior work that neural crest mesenchyme (NCM), which is the embryonic progenitor population that gives rise to the jaw skeleton, employs a variety of stage- and species-specific mechanisms to govern jaw length. Duck have much longer jaws compared to those of quail, and during the early migration of NCM from the anterior neural tube, duck embryos allocate more progenitors to the presumptive jaw region. Once these NCM populations arrive, their growth trajectories further diverge due to autonomous molecular programs for proliferation and differentiation that are tied to in...