Transgenic Mice for Craniofacial Studies

All animal procedures were approved by and followed the guidelines provided by the Texas A&M College of Dentistry IACUC committee and ARRIVE. Wwtr1^tm1Hmc Yap1^tm1Hmc/WranJ mice were obtained from the Jackson lab (JAX stock #030532) [21 (link)] and crossed with Wnt1-Cre mice, also from the Jackson lab. These mice were bred according to the Texas A&M IACUC protocol and then genotyped following the genotyping protocol associated with each strain developed by the Jackson lab. Taz knockouts with Yap heterozygous genotypes positive for Wnt1-Cre were considered as experimental knockout (K/O) models (hereafter mentioned as Wnt1Cre/YAP/TAZ) while C57 BL6/J mice were used as true control wild type (WT). The Wnt1-Cre mice successfully crossed with the TAZ/YAP double-floxed mice (Wnt1^cre × TAZ^flYAP^fl) were used for further studies. All mice were sacrificed as per the guidelines of the Texas A&M College of Dentistry IACUC committee.