... destruction of the cartilage. The onset of this disease might be triggered by multiple factorssuch as mechanical overload, defects in the composi-tion of the ECM, or altered expression of transcriptionfactors ... in the growth plate, and in chondrocytes of the joints[36]. The AP-2a knockout mouse died at birth, withsevere malformations of the craniofacial skeleton anddefects in the development of the ... increased in the earlyhypertrophic zones of cartilage together with that of the hypertrophic marker gene type X collagen, and didnot decrease until the late hypertrophic phase. Thus,these...