Fewer osteoclasts at the chondro-osseous junction of the growth plate in <i>Tace/Col2</i> mice.

<p>Tibia sections from 3-week-old <i>Control</i> and <i>Tace/Col2</i> mice stained for TRAP (A) or MMP-9 (C). The lower panels show high-magnification images of the boxed areas in the upper panels. (B) The number of TRAP-positive cells adjacent to the chondro-osseous junction per image in 3-week-old <i>Control</i> and <i>Tace/Col2</i> mice. The results are expressed as the mean ± SD of at least three mice (two sections from each mouse) in each group. (D) Quantitative analysis of the levels of <i>Rankl</i>, <i>Opg</i>, and <i>Mmp-13</i> transcripts in the cartilage tissues collected from <i>Control</i> and <i>Tace/Col2</i> mice. The results are expressed as the mean ± SD of at three independent experiments. **, <i>p</i><0.005.