Il-6 signaling exacerbates hallmarks of tendon lesions by stimulating progenitor proliferation & migration to damage.

We leveraged an explant-based, tissue engineered model of tendon damage to study cross-compartmental interactions between the tendon core and extrinsic progenitors, as well as between the tendon core and extrinsic macrophages. We suspected IL-6 signaling to play a major role in this crosstalk, so we also incorporated core explants from IL-6 knock-out mice. 1) Comparative gene expression profiling analysis of RNA-seq data for wildtype core explants or IL-6 knock-out core explants surrounded by a cell-free hydrogel, one filled with extrinsic progenitors, or one filled with macrophages. 2) Comparative gene expression profiling analysis of RNA-seq data for extrinsic progenitors surrounding a wildtype or a knock-out core.