A screen for tendon-specific genes uncovers new and old components involved in muscle-tendon interaction

The formation of complex tissues requires the assembly of distinct cell types that often migrate over long distances in order to interact with each other and establish a functional tissue. We performed a microarray analysis examining genes whose mRNA levels were upregulated in response to over-expression of the tendon-specific regulatory transcription factor Stripe. Most of the upregulated genes were previously uncharacterized genes. In this article we summarize the function of some of the newly discovered genes identified in this screen.