PLoS Biol, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2005086 (2018).
When an organism suffers non-symmetric damage during development, the impacted tissue must repair itself and grow disproportionally quicker in order to regain proper size and proportions. Authors of a recent study present a novel model for studying this process and extend our understanding of long bone development in fetal mice. In the report, investigators delivered an inducible cartilage-specific cell cycle repressor that blocked cell division in a fraction of chondrocytes on the left side, leaving the right side as the control. As compensation, unmodified left-side chondrocytes increased proliferation and there was also a net increase in extracellular matrix deposition. Interestingly, there was a mild decrease in systemic growth, which authors speculate was a result of communication between impacted chondrocytes and the placenta. Such a decrease may facilitate the catch-up process.
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Nelson, C. Playing catch-up. Lab Anim 47, 209 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41684-018-0124-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41684-018-0124-6