Laboratory of Molecular Basis of Cell Motility, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences, 3 Pasteur St., 02-093, Warsaw, Poland.
Laboratory of Molecular Basis of Cell Motility, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences, 3 Pasteur St., 02-093, Warsaw, Poland.
Semin Cell Dev Biol. 2020 Aug;104:81-92. doi: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2020.02.004. Epub 2020 Feb 13.
Myoblast fusion into myotubes is one of the crucial steps of skeletal muscle development (myogenesis). The fusion is preceded by specification of a myogenic lineage (mesodermal progenitors) differentiating into myoblasts and is followed by myofiber-type specification and neuromuscular junction formation. Similarly to other processes of myogenesis, the fusion requires a very precise spatial and temporal regulation occuring both during embryonic development as well as regeneration and repair of the muscle. A plethora of genes and their products is involved in regulation of myoblast fusion and a precise multilevel interplay between them is crucial for myogenic cells to fuse. In this review, we describe both cellular events taking place during myoblast fusion (migration, adhesion, elongation, cell-cell recognition, alignment, and fusion of myoblast membranes enabling formation of myotubes) as well as recent findings on mechanisms regulating this process. Also, we present muscle disorders in humans that have been associated with defects in genes involved in regulation of myoblast fusion.
成肌细胞融合形成肌管是骨骼肌发育（肌发生）的关键步骤之一。融合之前是肌源性谱系（中胚层祖细胞）的特化，分化为成肌细胞，然后是肌纤维类型的特化和神经肌肉接头的形成。与肌发生的其他过程一样，融合需要在胚胎发育以及肌肉的再生和修复过程中发生非常精确的时空调节。大量的基因及其产物参与成肌细胞融合的调节，它们之间的精确多层次相互作用对于肌源性细胞融合至关重要。在这篇综述中，我们描述了成肌细胞融合过程中发生的细胞事件（迁移、黏附、伸长、细胞-细胞识别、对齐和成肌细胞膜融合，从而形成肌管）以及最近关于调节这个过程的机制的发现。此外，我们还介绍了与参与成肌细胞融合调节的基因缺陷相关的人类肌肉疾病。
