Transcriptome analysis of tendon in Mkx conditional knock out mice

Tendons are crucial connective tissues that link muscle to bone. We have demonstrated that the transcription factor Mkx plays a pivotal role in tendon development and homeostasis by regulating collagen fibril organization through tendon cell fate determination from progenitor cells and promoting the expression of type I collagen and proteoglycans. However, the precise role of Mkx in tendon homeostasis after birth is not well understood. Therefore, we generated conditional Mkx knockout mice by crossing Mkx-CreER mice with Mkx floxed mice. Following tamoxifen administration, we performed transcriptome analysis of tendons from control mice (Mkx-CreER/+ and Mkx flox/+) and Mkx conditional knockout mice (Mkx-CreER/flox) Mkx-CreER/+, Mkx-flox, and Mkx-CreER/flox mice were administered tamoxifen at 6 weeks of age. After 4 weeks, the Achilles tendon was harvested, and total RNA was purified using the Direct-zol RNA MicroPrep Kit (Zymo Research). RNA-seq libraries were prepared using the GenNext RamDA-seq Single Cell Kit RMD-101 (TOYOBO), and the libraries were sequenced on a NovaSeq 6000 (Illumina).