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BMC Biology BioMed Central Research article Open Access A periodic pattern generator for dental diversity Gareth J Fraser*, Ryan F Bloomquist and J Todd Streelman Address: School of Biology, Petit Institute of Bioengineering and Bioscience, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0230, USA Email: Gareth J Fraser* - gareth.fraser@; Ryan F Bloomquist - gtg218r@; J Todd Streelman - todd.streelman@ * Corresponding author Published: 14 July 2008 Received: 25 January 2008 Accepted: 14 July 2008 BMC Biology 2008, 6:32 doi:10.1186/1741-7007-6-32 This article is available from: /1741-7007/6/32 © 2008 Fraser et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Periodic patterning of iterative structures is a fundamental process during embryonic organization and development. Studies have shown how gene networks are employed to pattern butterfly eyespots, fly bristles and vertebrate epithelial appendages such as teeth, feathers, hair and mammary glands. Despite knowledge of how these features are organized, little is known about how diversity in periodic patterning is generated in nature. We address this problem through the molecul