MSX1 and orofacial cleft: Blanco et al. (2001) proposed that male susceptibility to CLs and CLPs may be associated to a certain extent with a MSX1 gene variation mapped on chromosome 4. On the other hand, the association of CPs with female gender may be associated with embryo closure time of the secondary palate, which occurs later in women than in men (Souza and Raskin, 2013). However, recent genome-wide interaction studies identified gender-specific risk alleles for non-syndromic orofacial clefts (Carlson et al., 2018).