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To address the question of cellular origins of entheseal fibrocartilage, we first employed spatial transcriptional and single cell sequencing to identify a novel population of\n                    <jats:italic>Tnn<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u207a progenitor cells and delineate their lineage trajectories across developmental stages. Subsequently, we used a diphtheria toxin mediated ablation model targeting these\n                    <jats:italic>Tnn<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u207a progenitors and demonstrated their functional importance, as ablation resulted in hypoplastic phenotypes characterized by impaired fibrocartilage maturation. Furthermore, comparative single-cell profiling between unloaded entheses and normal entheses revealed that tendon unloading significantly diminished both the abundance and chondrogenic potential of\n                    <jats:italic>Tnn<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u207a progenitors. Collectively, these findings resolve fundamental questions regarding enthesis morphogenesis and provide mechanistic insights into how mechanical loading orchestrates this critical developmental process.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1038\/s41413-026-00519-3","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,21]],"date-time":"2026-04-21T02:30:56Z","timestamp":1776738656000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Identification of a new population of Tnn+ progenitors to form tendon enthesis fibrocartilage"],"prefix":"10.1038","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Tao","family":"Zhang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Lin","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ziyang","family":"Yuan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Linfeng","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0736-1488","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jianzhong","family":"Hu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Thomas","family":"Skutella","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7749-3593","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hongbin","family":"Lu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"519_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"931","DOI":"10.1016\/S1095-6433(02)00138-1","volume":"133","author":"M Benjamin","year":"2002","unstructured":"Benjamin, M. et al. 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