An unexpected localization of AIRE mRNA was found by Harris et al., who studied two unrelated APS-1 adolescents with chronic abnormalities of endochondral ossification, characterized by irregular and radioopaque metaphyses, subjacent to the growth plates of long bones; AIRE expression, although not searched for in the bone samples of the patients, was assayed in the thymus, liver, and growth plates of healthy fetuses aborted at 13–18 weeks of gestational age, in chondrocytes and in two chondrosarcoma lines: in all examined tissues, AIRE expression resulted consistently active. Here, AIRE is linked to chondrosarcoma.