title: A landmark-free morphometric staging system for the mouse limb bud.
abstract: We have created a 2D morphometric analysis of the developing mouse hindlimb bud. This analysis has provided two useful resources for the study of limb development. First, a temporally accurate numerical description of shape changes during normal mouse limb development. Second, a web-based morphometric staging system, which has the advantage of being easy to use, and with a reproducibility of about ±2 hours. It allows users to upload a dorsal-view photo of a limb bud, draw a spline curve and thereby stage the bud within a couple of minutes. We describe how the system is constructed, its robustness to user variation and illustrate one application: the accurate tracking of spatiotemporal dynamics of gene expression patterns.
authors.affiliation: EMBL-CRG Systems Biology Research Unit, Centre for Genomic Regulation, UPF, Calle Dr. Aiguader 88, Barcelona 08003, Spain.
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Boehm
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rautschka
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Quintana
authors.forename: Jelena
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Raspopovic
authors.forename: Ziga
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jan
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sharpe
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001837:Body Weights and Measures / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D047108:Embryonic Development / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D005865:Gestational Age; D057238:Growth Charts; D018878:Limb Buds / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000196:embryology* / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D008954:Models, Biological; D009929:Organ Size / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design / Q000592:standards; D055758:SOX9 Transcription Factor / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D055758:SOX9 Transcription Factor; C527933:Sox9 protein, mouse