Disruption ofScube2Impairs Endochondral Bone Formation

Intraflagellar transport is essential for endochondral bone formation.

While cilia are present on most cells in the mammalian body, their functional importance has only recently been discovered. Cilia formation requires intraflagellar transport (IFT), and mutations disrupting the IFT process result in loss of cilia and mid-gestation lethality with developmental defects that include polydactyly and abnormal neural tube patterning. The early lethality in IFT mutants...

F-spondin regulates chondrocyte terminal differentiation and endochondral bone formation.

This study examines the role of F-spondin, an extracellular matrix protein of osteoarthritic cartilage, during chondrocyte maturation in embryonic growth plate cartilage. In chick tibia, F-spondin expression localized to the hypertrophic and calcified zones of the growth plate. Functional studies using tibial organ cultures indicated that F-spondin inhibited (∼35%, p = 0.02), and antibodies to ...

Profilin1 regulates sternum development and endochondral bone formation.

Bone development is a dynamic process that requires cell motility and morphological adaptation under the control of actin cytoskeleton. This actin cytoskeleton system is regulated by critical modulators including actin-binding proteins. Among them, profilin1 (Pfn1) is a key player to control actin fiber structure, and it is involved in a number of cellular activities such as migration. During t...

Endochondral Bone Formation with Adult Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Introduction Adult human Mesenchymal Stem Cells (hMSC) have typically been used to form bone tissue by a process resembling membranous ossification. However, long bones develop through an endochondral process, which consists in the formation of a hypertrophic cartilaginous template and its substitution with bone tissue. To date, endochondral bone tissue has been obtained only with murine Embryo...

Endochondral Bone Formation as Blueprint for Regenerative Medicine