Assembly of the junction between muscle and tendon cells is important for proper development of muscle tissue. A recent study has identified a new player in this process, a gene named slowdown. Developing muscles that lack slowdown have torn muscle fibers, as well as disconnected and broken tendons. The image above shows muscle fibers (red) and tendon cells (blue) in normal (left) and slowdown mutant (right) larvae in the fruit fly Drosophila.
Reference: Eliezer Gilsohn and Talila Volk, 2010. Development: 137, 785-794. doi: 10.1242/dev.043703. Adapted with permission by Development. Paper can be found here.
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