Tendon Omics: A Survey-Based Perspective on Obstacles and Opportunities.

Until recently, our fundamental understanding of tendon biology, from development to post-natal growth, aging, and response to injury, has been limited to bulk transcriptomic profiling and low-throughput molecular biology techniques. Recent advances in omics technologies have provided a critical opportunity to define and interrogate the cellular and molecular landscape across different tissue states, with the ultimate goal of informing translational strategies to retain or restore tendon health. However, there are clear gaps, including infrastructure and expertise that have limited the ability to fully leverage the potential of these datasets. Therefore, in preparation for the 2024 Orthopaedic Research Society Tendon Section Satellite Meeting at the Mayo Clinic, a survey of the tendon community was circulated in Fall 2023 to understand the most-pressing challenges in tendon omics that should be addressed at this meeting. Through this survey, three dominant themes emerged: (1) data sharing, emphasizing the need for open-source tools to query existing datasets; (2) data reporting, with a focus on the need for consistent reporting of associated metadata; and (3) data use and annotation, identifying the need for consensus molecular definition of different cell populations. These priorities then informed both the plenary and breakout sessions at the Satellite meeting. This perspective article summarizes and synthesizes the survey data, plenary sessions, and discussion groups that developed community-driven priorities and actionable items to generate a community roadmap to enhance the impact of tendon omics research.