The effects of disorders of cartilage formation and bone resorption on bone shape: a study with chondrodystrophic and osteopetrotic mouse mutants.

The shapes of scapulae and basi-occipital bones from three genetically distinct achondroplastic mutants and one osteopetrotic mutant in the mouse (achondroplasia, brachymorphic, stumpy and grey lethal), and appropriate controls, have been compared using Fourier analysis and multivariate statistical techniques. Normal littermates were generally similar in shape, but mutants were significantly different from these controls and from each other. The pattern of morphological differences between the mutants and between the mutants and normal controls is examined. These differences are discussed in relation to the different effects of the four genes on bone morphogenesis, and the significance of these findings in relation to the contributions of cartilage formation and bone resorption to skeletal morphogenesis is considered.