Such mesenchymal defects, however, are not a characteristic of all mouse models of OM, such as the Mecom, Junbo, and Tbx1 het mice, where cavitation precedes normally but defects are associated with changes to the innate immune system or eustachian tube function, respectively (Fuchs et al., 2015; Bhutta et al., 2017; Del-Pozo et al., 2019). Here, MECOM is linked to ocular melanoma.