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Tanaka Lab
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The lab explores how limbs evolved by studying the mechanisms of development.
AboutAbout the lab
How did body forms evolve?
The Tanaka Lab approaches the question of how body forms evolved by studying the mechanisms of development.
Changes in animal form involve changes in developmental programs, so the lab analyzes the development of species that occupy key positions in the evolutionary tree.
Its main model is the limb: hands and feet evolved from the pectoral and pelvic fins of ancient fish.
In addition to chickens, zebrafish, and medaka, the lab works with many other animals, including cloudy catsharks, emus, and softshell turtles.
Key terms
- Developmental program
- The combination of gene activities that determines the path by which body shape and organs are formed from a fertilized egg
- Interdigital cell death
- When limbs form, the cells between the digits die and are removed, which separates the digits
- Paired fins
- Fins attached in pairs on the left and right sides of a fish's body, consisting of pectoral and pelvic fins. They were the origin of limbs
NewsLab news
A special issue organized and edited by Prof. Tanaka is published in Zoological Science
Students win Young Investigator Presentation Awards at the joint meeting of the Japan Society for Cell Biology and the Japanese Society of Developmental Biologists
A student wins the 28th Osumi Journal Award
Collaborative research clarifies how the emu's wing becomes shorter, published in Nature Communications
Prof. Tanaka wins the Society Award of the Zoological Society of Japan
ResearchResearch themes
The lab approaches the question of how body forms evolved by analyzing developmental programs. Using the limb as a model, one of the organs that vertebrates newly acquired and reshaped, it investigates what happened as fins turned into limbs and then diversified into even more varied forms.
*Illustrative imageHow the emu's wing regresses
The wing of the emu, a flightless bird, shows not only a reduced skeleton but also a left-right asymmetric pattern. The lab has shown that muscle does not form at the tip of the wing and the wing can barely move during the embryonic stage, so the cells that become bone cannot receive mechanical stress.
*Illustrative imageInterdigital cell death produced by oxygen
Amphibians build their limbs through differences in the growth of the digits and the tissue between them, whereas in birds and mammals cell death also shapes the limbs. The lab found that atmospheric oxygen was necessary for this interdigital cell death to appear during the evolution of tetrapods.
*Illustrative imageLearning from sharks about the origin of limb muscles
Limb muscles are formed from cells called migratory muscle precursor cells. The lab showed that muscles form in a manner similar to our limbs even in the paired fins of cartilaginous fishes, which are thought to retain primitive features, and that the origin of this mode of development may be older than previously thought.
*Illustrative imageEvolution from fins to limbs
In shark embryos the front side of the pectoral fin is wide, whereas in mouse embryos the rear side of the forelimb is wide. The lab showed that the cause is a functional change in the enhancer of the Gli3 gene, which controls patterning along the anteroposterior axis.
MembersFaculty
The members of the Tanaka Lab consist of faculty, researchers, secretaries, and graduate and undergraduate students.As of 2026
- ProfessorMikiko TanakaPublications ↗
- Assistant ProfessorToru KawanishiPublications ↗
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Embryo in chicken egg (Gallus domesticus) after 72 hours of incubation” Monika Tumialis (Eksnazja) / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- How the emu's wing regresses: “Emu 1 - Tidbinbilla” JJ Harrison / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Interdigital cell death produced by oxygen: “American Coot Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge )” USFWS Mountain-Prairie / Public domain (cropped)
- Learning from sharks about the origin of limb muscles: “Scyliorhinus canicula 35829338” Karim Haddad / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Evolution from fins to limbs: “Pectoral fin coelacanth” This illustration was made by Citron You must credit this : Citron / CC-BY-SA-3.0 / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
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白木研究室): “Human induced pluripotent stem cell colony ( )” NIH Image Gallery from Bethesda, Maryland, USA / Public domain (cropped) - Related lab (瓜生研究室): “Brachydanio rerio” Marrabbio2 / Public domain (cropped)
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- Related lab (戸田研究室): “Volcano hummingbird (Selasphorus flammula) female in flight 2” Charles J. Sharp / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
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