Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Specific and Preosteoblast-Specific Ablation of TSC1 in Mice Lead to Severe and Slight Spinal Dysplasia, Respectively.

Our data suggest that the TSC1 gene is crucial for endochondral ossification during postnatal spine development but plays discriminative roles at different stages. Mesenchymal stem cell-specific ablation of TSC1 led to severe spinal dysplasia at early stages of endochondral ossification while osteoblast-specific deletion of TSC1 affected vertebrae slightly and had no detectable effects on intervertebral discs.