Facial skeletal growth in growing "toothless" osteopetrotic (op/op) mice: radiographic findings.

The defective bone resorption in the osteopetrotic (op/op) mouse brings about failure of tooth eruption. Furthermore, the op/op mouse has been studied as a "toothless" mouse in recent morphological and physiological investigations of the relationship between mastication and masseter muscle development. The present study was conducted to examine in detail the nasal bone and the premaxillary bone in this mutant mouse and to assess the roles of incisor growth and the mechanical stress of mastication in nasal bone and premaxillary bone growth. The forms of the nasal bone and the premaxillary bone were observed using roentgenography in both toothless op/op and normal (control) mice. In the op/op mouse, the nasal bone and the premaxillary bone show remarkable deformity. In contrast, the normal mouse appears well developed. This suggests that growth of the incisor root is important to normal upper jaw growth in the mouse. Furthermore, it is proposed that the upper facial phenotype seen in the op/op mice results from not only decreased bone resorption, but also from absence of the mechanical stress provided by normal mastication.