Mechanisms of Muscle Homeostasis in Health and Disease: From Specification of Muscle Progenitors to Muscle Fibre Maintenance

A special issue of Muscles (ISSN 2813-0413).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 6520

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Randall Centre for Cell & Molecular Biophysics, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, King's College London, London, UK
Interests: muscle development; muscle fibre formation, function and maintenance; muscle cell fusion in development and disease; satellite cell biology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Skeletal muscles account for 30–40% of the total weight in humans and contribute to skeletal support, thermoregulation, and metabolism, beyond force generation for movement. Therefore, pathological conditions impinging on muscle development, maintenance and function severely impact quality of life.

Muscles experience continued physical stress, and thus require finely tuned mechanisms to preserve homeostatic equilibrium. Healthy muscle is capable of self-repair and locally regenerates due to resident stem cells and named satellite cells, which ensure both myofibre homeostasis, hypertrophy, repair and regeneration, highly sophisticated processes that partially recapitulate embryonic muscle development. Indeed, defective myogenic steps, such as altered proliferation, differentiation or cell fusion strongly impinge on the ability of embryonic myoblasts, or adult satellite cells, to form or regenerate muscle fibres.

The main purpose of this Special Issue, entitled ‘Mechanisms of Muscle Homeostasis in Health and Disease: From Specification of Muscle Progenitors to Muscle Fibre Maintenance’, is to gather new experimental insights or thought-provoking review articles that aim to shed light on intricate cellular and molecular regulation as the basis of muscle homeostasis and contribute to a better understanding of muscle development and regeneration in health and disease, possibly proposing potential therapeutic approaches for pathological conditions where muscle homeostasis is compromised.

Dr. Massimo Ganassi
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • myogenesis
  • satellite cells
  • myofibre
  • muscle regeneration
  • muscle development
  • neuromuscular disorders
  • myoblast differentiation and fusion
  • muscle homeostasis
  • muscle hypertrophy and hyperplasia
  • myoblast

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Review

15 pages, 1047 KiB  
Review
Advances and Prospects in Understanding Vertebrate Cardiac Conduction System, Pacemaker Cell, and Cardiac Muscle Development: Toward Novel Biological Therapies
by Ridwan Opeyemi Bello, Shannon Frew, Yusra Siddiqui and Rashid Minhas
Muscles 2023, 2(4), 338-352; https://doi.org/10.3390/muscles2040026 - 12 Oct 2023
Viewed by 2138
Abstract
The heart is composed of muscle cells called cardiomyocytes, including a specialized population named pacemaker cells that form the cardiac conduction system (CCS), which is responsible for generating the action potential dictating heart contractions. Failure of the CCS system leads to cardiac arrhythmias, [...] Read more.
The heart is composed of muscle cells called cardiomyocytes, including a specialized population named pacemaker cells that form the cardiac conduction system (CCS), which is responsible for generating the action potential dictating heart contractions. Failure of the CCS system leads to cardiac arrhythmias, which require complicated therapies and often the surgical implantation of electrical pacemakers. However, recent research has focused on the development of novel therapies using biological pacemakers that aim to substitute electrical devices. While most signaling pathways and transcription factors involved in the development of the pacemaker cells are known, the upstream regulatory networks need to be predicted through computer-based databases, mathematical modeling, as well as the functional testing of the regulatory elements in vivo, indicating the need for further research. Here, we summarize the current knowledge about the vertebrate myocardial CCS system and the development of the pacemaker cells, as well as emphasize the areas of future research to clarify the regulation of muscle pacemaker cells and the ease of development of biological therapies. Full article
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17 pages, 694 KiB  
Review
Heat Shock Proteins: Important Helpers for the Development, Maintenance and Regeneration of Skeletal Muscles
by Silvia Pomella, Matteo Cassandri, Francesco Antoniani, Samuele Crotti, Laura Mediani, Beatrice Silvestri, Margherita Medici, Rossella Rota, Alessandro Rosa and Serena Carra
Muscles 2023, 2(2), 187-203; https://doi.org/10.3390/muscles2020014 - 18 Apr 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2981
Abstract
The skeletal muscle is a highly plastic tissue that shows a remarkable adaptive capacity in response to acute and resistance exercise, and modifies its composition to adapt to use and disuse, a process referred to as muscle plasticity. Heat shock proteins (HSPs), a [...] Read more.
The skeletal muscle is a highly plastic tissue that shows a remarkable adaptive capacity in response to acute and resistance exercise, and modifies its composition to adapt to use and disuse, a process referred to as muscle plasticity. Heat shock proteins (HSPs), a class of evolutionarily conserved molecular chaperones, have been implicated in the regulation of skeletal muscle plasticity. Here, we summarize key findings supporting the notion that HSPs are important components required to maintain skeletal muscle integrity and functionality. HSPs participate in the transcriptional program required for myogenesis and are activated following muscle exercise and injury. Their dysfunction, either as a consequence of improper expression or genetic mutations, contributes to muscle atrophy and leads to the development of myopathies and peripheral motor neuropathies. Denervation/reinnervation and repeated rounds of nerve degeneration/regeneration have been observed in motor neuropathies, suggesting that an imbalance in HSP expression and function may impair the repair of the neuromuscular junctions. Boosting HSP activity may help preventing muscle atrophy by promoting muscle differentiation and helping the repair of NMJs. Boosting HSP function may also help to combat the development of rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), a highly aggressive type of pediatric soft tissue sarcoma whose cells have skeletal muscle features but are unable to fully differentiate into skeletal muscle cells. Full article
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