Ciliary IFT88 safeguards coordinated epiphyseal vascularisation, resorption and ossification from disruptive physiological mechanical forces

In the musculoskeletal system, appropriate cell and tissue responses to mechanical force delineate morphogenesis and ensure lifelong health. Despite this, how mechanical cues are integrated into biological programmes remains unclear. Primary cilia are microtubule-based organelles that tune a range of cell activities, including signalling cascades activated or modulated, by extracellular biophysical cues. Here, we demonstrate that the inducible, cartilage-specific deletion of Intraflagellar transport protein 88 (IFT88), which reduces ciliation in the adolescent mouse growth plate (GP), uncouples chondrocyte differentiation from cartilage resorption and mineralisation in a mechano-dependent manner. Targeting IFT88, inhibits hypertrophic chondrocyte VEGF expression, vascular recruitment, osteoclastic activity and the replacement of cartilage with bone. These effects are largely restricted to peripheral tibial regions beneath the load-bearing compartments of the knee. Increases in physiological loading, in control mice, also impairs ossification in the peripheral GP, mimicking the effects of IFT88 deletion. Strikingly, limb immobilisation rescues disrupted VEGF and restores epiphyseal dynamics in Ift88 cKO mice. These data indicate, that during this pivotal phase in adolescent skeletal maturation that defines the cessation of growth, ciliary IFT88 protects the coordinated ossification of the growth plate from an otherwise disruptive heterogeneity of physiological mechanical forces.