syndactyly/protease

Physiological cell death is a key mechanism that ensures appropriate development and maintenance of tissues and organs in multicellular organisms. Most structures in the vertebrate embryo exhibit defined areas of cell death at precise stages of development. In this regard the areas of interdigital

ADAMTS9 is the most conserved member of a large family of secreted metalloproteases having diverse functions. Adamts9 null mice die before gastrulation, precluding investigations of its roles later in embryogenesis, in adult mice or disease models. We therefore generated a floxed Adamts9 allele to

We show that combinatorial mouse alleles for the secreted metalloproteases Adamts5, Adamts20 (bt), and Adamts9 result in fully penetrant soft-tissue syndactyly. Interdigital webs in Adamts5(-/-);bt/bt mice had reduced apoptosis and decreased cleavage of the proteoglycan versican; however, the