For centuries, the dentition has been important for morphological studies, while in the last twenty years teeth have become a model for epidermal organ development. By incorporating both morphological evidence and genetic knowledge to recreate the evolutionary pathways that led to certain tooth morphologies I hope to better understand the developmental mechanisms and the underlying evolutionary pattern observed in the teeth of mammals.
For this dissertation, I examined protein and gene expression and interspecific morphometrics to evaluate theories on genetic control of dental patterns in three disparate mammals. First, tooth class in pigs was assessed by looking at gene expression patterns in a mammal with four distinct tooth types. Second a mammal with only one morphological tooth class, odontocetes (dolphins), was looked at to determine how protein expression patterns differ in a homodont mammal. To gain knowledge of the formation of the secondary teeth and the genes involved in determining their shape, I examined protein expression in the pig. I also analyzed integration patterns among primate teeth to determine if species-level morphologies can be explained by previous theories on how tooth class is established.