Articles & Events

New release: Phenotypic impacts of embryonic exposure to the CSF1R inhibitor PLX5622 on craniofacial development

A new dataset is now available on FaceBase from Ma, Rosin, and colleagues at The University of British Columbia. Their study examines how disrupting CSF1R signaling, which is critical for macrophage and osteoclast development, affects craniofacial morphogenesis during embryonic development. A related manuscript is released on Development.

Control (left) and PLX5622-exposed (right) mouse crania stained for bone (red) and cartilage (blue), revealing craniofacial structural disruptions following prenatal CSF1R inhibition. Image courtesy of Felix Ma and Jessica M. Rosin.

PI: Jessica M. Rosin (the University of British Columbia)

Description:

Despite a wealth of knowledge on the mechanisms underlying craniofacial morphogenesis during gestation, the roles of fetal macrophages and osteoclasts during this process remain less well characterized. Here, we used the pharmacological inhibitor PLX5622 to disrupt colony stimulating factor-1 receptor (CSF1R) signaling, which is essential for macrophage and osteoclast proliferation, differentiation, and survival. Prenatal PLX5622 exposure resulted in ∼50% depletion of CSF1R+ macrophages, with complete loss of osteoclasts. While there were no notable changes in craniofacial nerve or muscle development, prenatal exposure to PLX5622 resulted in skull doming and cranial suture impairments, in addition to disruptions to development of the premaxilla, mandible, ear ossicles, palate, and cranial base. In response to PLX5622 exposure, cytokine and chemokine signaling was altered and neural crest proliferation was impaired. Our data also highlight sex- and strain-specific differences in PLX5622 phenotypes and together demonstrate that CSF1R+ macrophages and osteoclasts are essential for craniofacial morphogenesis.

Data deposited on FaceBase include images of control and PLX5622-exposed whole-mount E11.5, E12.5, and E13.5 nerve (2H3) and muscle (MF 20) antibody staining and P1 skeletal staining.

FaceBase Dataset:

Felix Ma, Jessica M. Rosin. Phenotypic impacts of embryonic exposure to the CSF1R inhibitor PLX5622 on craniofacial development. FaceBase Consortium https://doi.org/10.25550/A9-12PJ (2026).

Publication:

Felix Ma, Rose Ru Jing Zhou, Matthew Rosin, Iris Zhou, Sabrina Ownsworth, Rouzbeh Ostadsharif Memar, Vincent B. Wong, Jessica M. Rosin; CSF1R+ macrophage and osteoclast depletion impairs neural crest proliferation and craniofacial morphogenesis. Development 2026; dev.205423. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.205423

Meet FaceBase at GRC and AADOCR/IADR next week

FaceBase will be at two major conferences this March. If you’re attending either event in Southern California, we’d love to connect — stop by, say hello, and learn more about our data resources and tools.

Gordon Research Conference

Craniofacial Morphogenesis and Tissue Regeneration
📍 Ventura, CA | March 22–27, 2026

FaceBase co-PI Yang Chai (USC/Ostrow School of Dentistry) will serve as Discussion Leader for the Stem Cells and Organoids I: Stem Cells of the Craniofacial Complex session on Thursday, March 26 (9:00 AM – 12:30 PM).

Alejandro Bugacov and Rob Schuler (ISI/USC) will host an informal demo session on Tuesday, March 24 at 3:00 PM, where attendees can get a hands-on look at the platform and learn how to find and use FaceBase data and tools.

AADOCR/IADR Annual Meeting

American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research
📍 San Diego, CA | March 25–28, 2026

Visit us in the Exhibit Hall at Booth #402 to explore FaceBase resources, see demos, and connect with our team.

Also:

• Alejandro Bugacov will provide demos at the NIH Trainee Poster Session
  📅 Wednesday, March 25 | 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM (PST)
  📍 Rooms CC 30A & B

• Jifan Feng (USC/Ostrow School of Dentistry) will present at the NIDCR Data Science – Multi-omics Integration and Precision Medicine Session on Spatial Transcriptomics and Cell Lineage Analysis in Craniofacial Development 📅 Wednesday, March 25 | 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM (PST)
  📍 Room 29B

We look forward to seeing you there.

If you’d like to schedule time with our team in advance, feel free to reach out:
help@facebase.org

New release: Spatial Transcriptomics of Mouse CFA-induced TMJ arthritis

Spatial transcriptomics of the mouse temporomandibular joint (TMJ) using seqFISH, from the dataset Spatial Transcriptomics of Mouse CFA-induced TMJ arthritis

PI: Jian-Fu Chen (University of Southern California)

Description:

Complete Freund’s Adjuvant (CFA)-induced Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) arthritis remodels the cartilage, subchondral bone, and synovial tissue with diverse cell changes. The functional importance of the anatomical organization of TMJ cell types and cellular microenvironment in painful arthritis remains largely unknown. Here, we applied seqFISH (sequential Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization) spatial transcriptomicsto examine the adult mouse TMJ. We uncovered new cell types and comprehensively mapped anatomical locations of diverse cell types with distinct neighborhoods, revealed arthritis-induced cell number and cell status changes, and discovered microenvironment remodeling of fibroblast-immune cells, which are confirmed in patient synovial tissues. Functional and mechanistic studies showed that macrophage-specific knockout of mouse Igf1 promotes its immune activation and upregulates Il33 in adjacent synovial fibroblasts, resulting in inflammatory fibroblast expansion. In turn, fibroblast-specific deletion of Il33 alleviates inflammatory macrophages and inflammation, leading to pain mitigation. Thus, spatial transcriptomics maps diverse cell types in TMJ and reveals a remodeling of synovial fibroblast-immune microenvironment via the Igf1-Il33 axis, which drives arthritis pain with therapeutic potentials.

FaceBase Dataset:

Ziying Lin, Supawadee Jariyasakulroj, Yang Shu, Jingyi Chen, Qing Chang, Pao-Fen Ko, Yuyueyang Qiu, Feixiang Chen, David Ahn, Zhen Zhao, Jian-Fu Chen. Spatial Transcriptomics of Mouse CFA-induced TMJ arthritis. FaceBase Consortium https://doi.org/10.25550/8Q-3KAR (2026).

Publication:

Lin Z, Jariyasakulroj S, Shu Y, Chen J, Chang Q, Ko PF, Qiu Y, Chen F, Ahn D, Zhao Z, Chen JF. Spatial Transcriptomics of TMJ Reveals a Remodeling Fibroblast-Immune Microenvironment Driving Arthritis Pain. Adv Sci (Weinh). 2026 Jan 7:e19816. doi: 10.1002/advs.202519816. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 41498747.

New release: MicroCT analysis of ameloblast specific Smad4 conditional knockout mice and Ambn-IRESCre mouse models

Mutant sample from the dataset MicroCT analysis of ameloblast specific Smad4 conditional knockout mice

Description:

Michael Paine’s lab (University of Southern California) developed a novel ameloblastin driven Cre-recombinase mouse line (Ambn-IRESCre MMRRC Strain #067446-JAX; RRID:MMRRC_067446-JAX) with Cre expression limited to enamel forming cells called ameloblasts. This is a significant advance from the current Cre mouse lines used in conditional gene silencing to study enamel formation. We used this Ambn-IRESCre line to knockdown the transcription factor Smad4 specifically in ameloblasts and achieved an extreme pathological phenotype limited to tooth enamel with no effects on the physiological functions of Smad4. These data highlight the significance of the Ambn-IRESCre mouse model for future studies defining gene functions during enamel formation.

Related Resource:

This data is part of EnamelBase, a community resource providing validated genetic mouse tools and multi-scale data to study gene expression, structure, and mechanical properties of developing and mature tooth enamel.

FaceBase Datasets:

Michael Lansdell Paine, Rucha Arun Bapat, Alexis Bauer, David Evans, Yanbin Ji, Marziyeh Aghazadeh. MicroCT analysis of ameloblast specific _Smad4_ conditional knockout mice. FaceBase Consortium https://doi.org/10.25550/2W-YN1C (2026).

Rucha Arun Bapat, Alexis Bauer, David Evans, Marziyeh Aghazadeh, Yanbin Ji, Michael Lansdell Paine. MicroCT analysis of Ambn-IRESCre mouse models. FaceBase Consortium https://doi.org/10.25550/7X-HZDA (2026).

Registration and Call for Abstracts Now Open: FaceBase Community Forum 2026

We’re pleased to announce that registration and the Call for Abstracts are now open for the FaceBase Community Forum 2026!

Monday–Tuesday, May 4–5, 2026
Arlington, VA (USC/ISI East Office)

Theme
Advancing Reuse, Integration, and AI-Ready Research Across Craniofacial and Related Health Domains to Enhance Whole Person Health

This year’s Forum will bring together researchers, clinicians, data scientists, trainees, and data contributors to explore how shared, well-curated data and modern data science approaches can accelerate discovery across dental, oral, craniofacial, inner ear, and related health domains.

What to expect

• Keynote talks and NIH program updates
• Sessions on data federation, collaboration, and AI-ready data resources
• Panels on clinical integration and the FaceBase EMR pilot project
• A poster session highlighting community-driven work and data reuse examples

Call for Abstracts We invite submissions describing completed studies, ongoing work, methods, tools, or emerging ideas related to data reuse, integration, and AI-ready research. Abstracts will be used to organize the poster session, and a subset may be selected for invited talks.

Register and submit here:

• Register
• Submit an abstract
• Learn more about the Forum

We hope you’ll join us in Arlington this May and help shape the conversation around data reuse and AI-ready biomedical research.