Any weekend warrior knows how painful and crippling cartilage injuries can be to joints like the knees, shoulders, and hips. In addition, illnesses including arthritis and temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ), which affect millions of people worldwide and cost the US public health system more than billions annually, are known to promote cartilage deterioration. Over time, patients with these illnesses feel more and more pain and discomfort. Regenerative medicine may benefit from increased knowledge about the multifaceted protein catenin. The study is published in Science Advances' most recent volume. Swiss researchers Tomas Valenta and Konrad Basler, as well as Canadian researchers Jody Haigh and Maxime Bouchard, were also involved in the study. Previously, it was believed that a cell's ability to develop into either bone or cartilage depended on the Wnt signal transduction pathway. The main factor in the conversion of Wnt signals is -catenin. This idea was supported by the observation that bone turned into cartilage when beta-catenin was disturbed. However, beta-catenin also functions as a cell adhesion molecule to promote cell-cell interaction, which was its original purpose before its function in Wnt signalling was discovered. Wnt signalling is a determinant for bone formation but isn't sufficient for cartilage generation. GATA 3 is an alternative action of Wnt, which is responsible for skeletal cell fate switching. There is currently no treatment that can regenerate cartilage, and current treatments are unable to improve joint function. This breakthrough study in tissue regeneration has great hope for thousands of patients and presents fresh research directions for experts to investigate.