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2016 (English)In: Nature, ISSN 0028-0836, E-ISSN 1476-4687, Vol. 539, no 7628, p. 237-+Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The teeth of gnathostomes (jawed vertebrates) show rigidly patterned, unidirectional replacement that may or may not be associated with a shedding mechanism. These mechanisms, which are critical for the maintenance of the dentition, are incongruently distributed among extant gnathostomes. Although a permanent tooth-generating dental lamina is present in all chondrichthyans, many tetrapods and some teleosts, it is absent in the non-teleost actinopterygians. Tooth-shedding by basal hard tissue resorption occurs in most osteichthyans (including tetrapods) but not in chondrichthyans. Here we report a three-dimensional virtual dissection of the dentition of a 424-million-year-old stem osteichthyan, Andreolepis hedei, using propagation phase-contrast synchrotron microtomography, with a reconstruction of its growth history. Andreolepis, close to the common ancestor of all extant osteichthyans, shed its teeth by basal resorption but probably lacked a permanent dental lamina. This is the earliest documented instance of resorptive tooth shedding and may represent the primitive osteichthyan mode of tooth replacement.
National Category
Evolutionary Biology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-310754 (URN)10.1038/nature19812 (DOI)000387318500034 ()27750278 (PubMedID)
Funder
EU, European Research Council, 233111Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
2016-12-202016-12-192017-11-29Bibliographically approved