Céline Colnot’s group, Relaix team, published in Nature Communications on May 17, a study on the role of muscle in bone regeneration.

(Anaïs Julien, Anuya Kanagalingam, Ester Martinez-Sarra, Fred Relaix, Céline Colnot)

Bone regeneration involves activation of tissue resident stem/progenitor cells. This study reveals that skeletal stem/progenitor cells are not only recruited from bone tissues (i.e. bone marrow and periosteum) but also from adjacent skeletal muscle.

Using in vivo lineage tracing and scRNAseq, the results show that mesenchymal progenitors from skeletal muscle mediate the fibrotic response to bone injury and engage in chondrogenesis. These processes are impaired after combined injury to muscle and bone, leading to persistent fibrosis and absence of bone healing, a phenotype that can be corrected by the anti-fibrotic agent Imatinib.

This study was carried out by Anais Julien, PhD student in the Group of Céline Colnot in the Team of Frederic Relaix, in collaboration with the laboratory of Mickael Menager at Imagine Institute for scRNAseq libraries.

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