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.