Assessing the association between hypoxia during craniofacial development and oral clefts

Abstract Objectives To evaluate the association between hypoxia during embryo development and oral clefts in an animal model, and to evaluate the association between polymorphisms in the HIF-1A gene with oral clefts in human families. Material and Methods The study with the animal model used zebrafish embryos at 8 hours post-fertilization submitted to 30% and 50% hypoxia for 24 hours. At 5 days post-fertilization, the larvae were fixed. The cartilage structures were stained to evaluate craniofacial phenotypes. The family-based association study included 148 Brazilian nuclear families with or...