Fig. 7.

Schematic drawing of the role of epithelial Wnt10a-Notch signaling in regulating root furcation patterning. a Epithelial Wnt10a-Notch signaling plays an important role in regulating the horizontal elongation of HERS. Physiologically, Wnt10a-Jag1/Notch2 regulates IEE cell proliferation by tuning the cell cycle to provide extension dynamics, and directly controls the horizontal direction of IEE cell division to determine the direction of HERS extension. b Absence of epithelial Wnt10a results in the down-regulation of Jag1/Notch2, which not only disturbs the IEE cell cycle and leads to extension dynamics impairment, but also changes the cell division orientation perpendicularly and results in regional stratification and cell pile-up of IEE cells. Subsequently, the HERS in the root furcation region fails to extend horizontally