Following up on an earlier discovery that a gene called IRF6 is
involved in the common birth defect cleft lip and palate,
researchers at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A.
Carver College of Medicine and their colleagues have identified
the function of the gene. Their latest findings, published
online Oct. 15 in Nature Genetics, reveal an unexpected role for
IRF6 in the growth and development of skin cells, a discovery
that may have implications for wound healing and cancer
research. In 2002, Brian Schutte, Ph.D., UI associate professor
of pediatrics and nursing, and Jeff Murray, M.D., UI professor
of pediatrics, pediatric dentistry and biological sciences, and
the Roy J. Carver Chair in Perinatal Health, led a study showing
that mutations in IRF6 cause Van der Woude syndrome (VWS), a
rare, dominantly inherited form of cleft lip and palate.
Subsequently, the researchers found that this gene also is
mutated in 10 to 15 percent of the more common, so-called non-
syndromic cases of cleft lip and palate.