Myoblast differentiation is fundamental to skeletal muscle development and regeneration after injury and defects in this process are implicated in muscle atrophy associated with aging or pathological conditions. MyoD family transcription factors function as mater regulators in induction of muscle-specific genes during myoblast differentiation. We have identified bakuchiol, a prenylated phenolic...

The two striated muscle cell types, skeletal and cardiac muscle, express overlapping sets of muscle-specific genes. Activation of muscle-specific transcription in skeletal muscle is controlled by the MyoD family of regulatory factors, which are expressed exclusively in skeletal muscle. Members of the MyoD family share homology within a basic helix-loop-helix (HLH) motif that mediates DNA bindin...

BACKGROUND Although muscle dysfunction caused by unfamiliar lengthening contraction is one of most important issues in sports medicine, there is little known about the molecular events on regeneration process. The purpose of this study was to investigate the temporal and spatial expression patterns of myogenin, myoD, pax7, and myostatin after acute lengthening contraction (LC)-induced injury in...

Myogenic regulatory factors (MRFs), including Myf5, MyoD (Myod1) and Myog, are muscle-specific transcription factors that orchestrate myogenesis. Although MRFs are essential for myogenic commitment and differentiation, timely repression of their activity is necessary for the self-renewal and maintenance of muscle stem cells (satellite cells). Here, we define Ascl2 as a novel inhibitor of MRFs. ...

The members of the MyoD family of basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors are critical regulators of skeletal muscle differentiation that function as heterodimers with ubiquitously expressed E-protein bHLH transcription factors. These heterodimers must compete successfully with homodimers of E12 and other E-proteins to enable myogenesis. Here, we show that E12 mutants resistant to C...

Myotonic dystrophy (DM) is caused by two similar noncoding repeat expansion mutations (DM1 and DM2). It is thought that both mutations produce pathogenic RNA molecules that accumulate in nuclear foci. The DM1 mutation is a CTG expansion in the 3' untranslated region (3'-UTR) of dystrophia myotonica protein kinase (DMPK). In a cell culture model, mutant transcripts containing a (CUG)200 DMPK 3'-...

Alterations in DNA methylation patterns are one of the earliest and most common events in tumorigenesis. Overall levels of genomic methylation often decrease during transformation, but localized regions of increased methylation have been observed in the same tumors. We have examined changes in the methylation status of the muscle determination gene myoD, which contains a CpG island, as a functi...

The accumulation of two myogenic regulatory proteins, MyoD and myogenin, was investigated by double-immunocytochemistry and correlated with myosin heavy chain expression in different classes of myoblasts in culture and during early myogenesis in vivo. During in vitro differentiation of fetal myoblasts, MyoD-positive cells were detected first, followed by the appearance of cells positive for bot...

Thyroid hormones are major determinants of skeletal muscle differentiation in vivo. Triiodo-L-thyronine treatment promotes terminal muscle differentiation and results in increased MyoD gene transcription in myogenic cell lines; furthermore myoD and fast myosin heavy chain gene expression are activated in rodent slow twitch muscle fibers (Molecular Endocrinology 6: 1185-1194, 1992; Development 1...

The co-factor Vestigial-like 2 (Vgl-2), in association with the Scalloped/Tef/Tead transcription factors, has been identified as a component of the myogenic program in the C2C12 cell line. In order to understand Vgl-2 function in embryonic muscle formation, we analysed Vgl-2 expression and regulation during chick embryonic development. Vgl-2 expression was associated with all known sites of ske...