Ift88 limits bone formation in maxillary process through suppressing apoptosis

•Excess bone formation was observed in the Ift88 mutant maxillary process (Ift88fl/fl;Wnt1Cre mice)..•Ectopic apoptosis was found in Ift88 mutant maxillary process at an early stage of development (Ift88fl/fl;Wnt1Cre mice).•Ift88fl/fl;Wnt1Cre;p53−/− mice showed no excess bone formation.•The palatal cleft was retained in the Ift88fl/fl;Wnt1Cre;p53−/− mice. The development of the maxillary bone is under strict molecular control because of its complicated structure. Primary cilia play a critical role in craniofacial development, since defects in primary cilia are known to cause congenital craniofacial dysmorphologies as a wide spectrum of human diseases: the ciliopathies. The primary cilia also are known to regulate bone formation. However, the role of the primary cilia in maxillary bone development is not fully understood. To address this question, we generated mice with a mesenchymal conditional deletion ofIft88 using the Wnt1Cre mice (Ift88fl/fl;Wnt1Cre). The gene Ift88 encodes a protein that is required for the function and formation of primary cilia. It has been shown thatIft88fl/fl;Wnt1Cre mice exhibit cleft palate. Here, we additionally observed excess bone formation in the Ift88 mutant maxillary process. We also found ectopic apoptosis in the Ift88 mutant maxillary process at an early stage of development. To investigate whether the ectopic apoptosis is related to the Ift88 mouse maxillary phenotypes, we generated Ift88fl/fl;Wnt1Cre;p53−/− mutants to reduce apoptosis. The Ift88fl/fl;Wnt1Cre;p53−/− mice showed no excess bone formation, suggesting that the cells evading apoptosis by the presence of Ift88 in wild-type mice limit bone formation in maxillary development. On the other hand, the palatal cleft was retained in the Ift88fl/fl;Wnt1Cre;p53−/− mice, indicating that the excess bone formation or abnormal apoptosis was independent of the cleft palate phenotype in Ift88 mutant mice. Ift88 limits bone formation in the maxillary process by suppressing apoptosis.