Using advanced racial and ethnic identity demographics to improve surveillance of work-related conditions in an occupational clinic setting.

Background: Although racial and ethnic identities are associated with a multitude of disparate medical outcomes, surveillance of these subpopulations in the occupational clinic setting could benefit enormously from a more detailed and nuanced recognition of racial and ethnic identity.

Methods: The research group designed a brief questionnaire to capture several dimensions of this identity and collected data from patients seen for work-related conditions in four occupational medicine clinics from May 2019 through March 2020. Responses were used to calculate the sensitivity and specificity of extant racial/ethnic identity data within our electronic health records system, and were compared to participants' self-reported industry and occupation, coded according to North American Industry Classification System and Standard Occupational Classification System listings.

Is Essential for Patterning of Multiple Musculoskeletal Tissues but Dispensable for Tendon Differentiation.

An efficient musculoskeletal system depends on the precise assembly and coordinated growth and function of muscles, skeleton, and tendons. However, the mechanisms that drive integrated musculoskeletal development and coordinated growth and differentiation of each of these tissues are still being uncovered. Epigenetic modifiers have emerged as critical regulators of cell fate differentiation, but so far almost nothing is known about their roles in tendon biology.

Occupational medicine clinical practice data reveal increased injury rates among Hispanic workers.

Background: Minnesota has an ethnically diverse labor force, with the largest number of refugees per capita in the United States. In recent years, Minnesota has been and continues to be a major site for immigrant and refugee resettlement in the United States, with a large population of both immigrant and native born Hmong, Hispanic, and East Africans. This study seeks to evaluate the injury risk among the evolving minority workforce in the Minnesota Twin Cities region.

Loss of histone methyltransferase Ezh2 stimulates an osteogenic transcriptional program in chondrocytes but does not affect cartilage development.

is a histone methyltransferase that suppresses osteoblast maturation and skeletal development. We evaluated the role of in chondrocyte lineage differentiation and endochondral ossification. was genetically inactivated in the mesenchymal, osteoblastic, and chondrocytic lineages in mice using the , , and drivers, respectively.

Mapping molecular landmarks of human skeletal ontogeny and pluripotent stem cell-derived articular chondrocytes.

Tissue-specific gene expression defines cellular identity and function, but knowledge of early human development is limited, hampering application of cell-based therapies. Here we profiled 5 distinct cell types at a single fetal stage, as well as chondrocytes at 4 stages in vivo and 2 stages during in vitro differentiation. Network analysis delineated five tissue-specific gene modules; these modules and chromatin state analysis defined broad similarities in gene expression during cartilage specification and maturation in vitro and in vivo, including early expression and progressive silencing of muscle- and bone-specific genes.