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Developmental biology

Is there such a thing as a cartilage-specific knockout mouse?

The strongest evidence yet that hypertrophic chondrocytes can turn into osteoblasts could affect not only our understanding of skeletal development, but also the use of research tools thought to be cartilage-specific.

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Figure 1: Osteochondral cell fate.

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Acknowledgements

The authors' work is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (M.A.P., F.B.) and Canada Research Chairs (F.B.).

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Correspondence to Frank Beier.

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Pest, M., Beier, F. Is there such a thing as a cartilage-specific knockout mouse?. Nat Rev Rheumatol 10, 702–704 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrrheum.2014.168

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