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

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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