In the United States, a baby is born with a facial cleft every hour, of every day of the year! Such birth defects result from both gene mutations and environmental insults. PRDM16 is a transcription factor originally described as being aberrantly activated in specific types of leukemia's, and more recently as a master regulator of brown adipose tissue differentiation. In a study published in Experimental Biology and Medicine, investigators have now shown that this transcription co-factor plays a critical role in development of the embryonic palate...
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