Joint formation requires muscle formation and contraction.
Embryo movement and muscle contraction affect joint formation, but their precise roles have remained elusive. In this issue of Developmental Cell, Joy Kahn and coworkers now demonstrate that these processes are essential for joint formation. They find that joint progenitor cells are unable to remain committed to their specified cell fate in mutant mice with defects in either muscle formation or contraction.
Yasuda
Hideyo
H
Department of Genetics, Unit 1006, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
de Crombrugghe
Benoit
B
D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D005121:Extremities / Q000196:embryology / Q000502:physiology; D007596:Joints / Q000166:cytology / Q000196:embryology*; D051379:Mice; D009119:Muscle Contraction; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology; D009154:Mutation; D038081:Organogenesis; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology