The majority of current knowledge regarding the genetics of tooth eruption and tooth development has been acquired from studies involving transgenic mice and other model organisms, including fish and reptiles, as well as from clinical genetic studies of humans with congenital disorders in which dental abnormalities are a feature. For example, studies in mice have implicated a host of signalling pathways as being critical in proper tooth eruption and development, including those involving the gene families Bmp, Eda, Fgf, Shh and Wnt, among others (3–5). These pathways are integrated at several stages of the tooth development process and the network appears to be highly conserved evolutionarily across species (4). Disruption of these pathways typically results in severe aberrations of dentition, including tooth agenesis or arrest in the early stages of tooth development (3).
