<i>Hotair</i> deletion has little impact, if any, on skeletal morphology.

<p>Alizarin Red and Alcian Blue skeletal staining of wild type and <i>Del(Hotair)</i>^<i>-/-</i> mice. (A) Lumbar region of wild type (left) and <i>Del(Hotair)</i>^<i>-/-</i> (right). In our (B6xCBA) background, both control and mutant animals have five lumbar vertebrae (L5), with an equally low incidence of L6 (see <a href="http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1006232#pgen.1006232.t001" target="_blank">Table 1</a>). (B) The sacro-caudal region of wild type (left) and <i>Del(Hotair)</i>^<i>-/-</i> (right) animals, with the black arrowhead pointing to a moderate gain of lateral protrusion in mutant caudal vertebra 5 (C5), usually not observed in control animals. (C) Normal wrist and ankle bones in both wild type (left) and <i>Del(Hotair)</i>^<i>-/-</i> (right) animals. The number and organization of mesopodial bones remained unchanged in the mutant condition.