Cellular and molecular mechanisms of vertebral fusion in teleosts.

Fusion of vertebral bodies is a common pathology in farmed fish At the same time during evolution fusion of vertebral bodies became a requirement to establish the teleost caudal fin endoskeleton Vertebral body fusion can be both an important process in the frame of regular skeletal development and a pathological process Previous studies analyzed in depth the ontogenetically required vertebral body fusion that occurs during zebrafish caudal fin endoskeleton development Exact data sets exist about the timeline of vertebral body fusion the variability of the process and the microanatomy of the fusion process Fusion occurs on two levels a early on the level of mineralization of the notochord sheath that establishes vertebral body identity b late on the level of intramembranous perinotochordal bone formation ESR11 will use the welldocumented ontogenetically required fusion of the caudal most vertebral bodies to understand developmental and molecular mechanisms that underlay pathological vertebral body fusion in other parts of the teleost vertebral column