Etiology and pathogenesis of heritable connective tissue diseases.

There are many heritable disorders of the connective tissues and many of them produce major musculoskeletal anomalies. The etiology of most of them is unknown, but collagen mutations have been characterized in osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), in some forms of the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) and in some of the chondrodysplasias. These diseases, particularly OI, provide a model for investigation of other heritable connective tissue diseases in which the mutant genes have not yet been identified.