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Myostatin inhibition induces muscle fibre hypertrophy prior to satellite cell activation
Author(s) -
Wang Qian,
McPherron Alexandra C.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the journal of physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.802
H-Index - 240
eISSN - 1469-7793
pISSN - 0022-3751
DOI - 10.1113/jphysiol.2011.226001
Subject(s) - myostatin , muscle hypertrophy , satellite , biology , medicine , endocrinology , cell growth , cell , microbiology and biotechnology , skeletal muscle , myocyte , mitosis , multinucleate , biochemistry , aerospace engineering , engineering
Key points • There is disagreement about whether muscle hypertrophy requires the activation and fusion of satellite cells, the quiescent muscle stem cells, to the multinucleated post‐mitotic muscle fibre. • Although the growth factor myostatin is clearly a negative regulator of muscle size, previous studies regarding its role in maintaining satellite cell quiescence have yielded conflicting results. • We injected mice with a myostatin inhibitor and the DNA labelling agent bromodeoxyuridine to label proliferating cells and found that a small number of satellite cells are activated after the onset of hypertrophy. • We also found that myostatin null mice are not resistant to age‐related muscle mass or satellite cell loss. • Our results suggest that myostatin inhibition in adult mice causes hypertrophy mainly by acting on myofibres rather than satellite cells, which results in an increase in the cytoplasmic volume to DNA ratio.