Background
Long bones develop through a strict coordinated process of endochondral ossification within the growth plate resulting in the replacement of cartilage by bone and defect in this coordinated process may result in skeletal abnormalities such as dwarfism, kyposis and also age-related defects such as osteoarthritis (OA). PPARγ, a transcription factor, plays a key role in lipid homeostasis but its in vivo role in cartilage/bone development is unknown. Therefore, we determined the specific in vivo role of PPARγ in endochondral bone ossification, cartilage/bone development and in OA using cartilage-specific PPARγ knockout (KO) mice.