Craniofacial neural crest cell-specific deletion of Ihh causes skeletal malocclusion in mice

Although our data is providing the evidence that Ihh regulates nasal and mandibular cartilage development to establish facial and masticatory system, the cartilage gene network conducted by Ihh signaling has not been broadly investigated. To establish such gene expression profile, we selected mandibular condylar cartilage to examine differentiating cartilage tissue. The cartilage histologically indicates simple endochondral ossification and mutant sections positive to Tomato staining presented decreased and disrupted cartilage. Condylar cartilages dissected under microscope from both control and mutant groups were processed and the total RNA was subjected to RNA Seq analysis. In parallel, mutant condylar samples were confirmed by Ihh, Cre and Tomato expression analysis.