Abstract
Cartilage is a type of connective tissue where the cells within – the chondrocytes – produce a matrix rich in type II collagen and proteoglycans. With a few exceptions in the skull and part of the clavicles, the skeletal elements (bones) are formed from cartilaginous templates that prefigure the future bones in shape and size. The cartilaginous templates eventually need to be replaced in a process referred to as endochondral ossification. Cartilage development is controlled at multiple levels: condensation of mesenchymal cells, differentiation of mesenchymal cells into chondroblasts and chondroblasts to chondrocytes, maturation of proliferating chondrocytes to postmitotic prehypertrophic and then to hypertrophic chondrocytes, and finally the remodeling at the transition from hypertrophic chondrocytes to trabecular bone. All these steps need to be controlled and Wnt signals play important regulatory roles in those processes. There are 19 different Wnt ligands in vertebrates, which can utilize diverse signaling pathways acting either positively or negatively on chondrogenesis and during cartilage development.
Published Version
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