Inducible depletion of adult skeletal muscle stem cells impairs the regeneration of neuromuscular junctions
- University of Rochester Medical Center, United States
Abstract
Skeletal muscle maintenance depends on motor innervation at neuromuscular junctions (NMJs). Multiple mechanisms contribute to NMJ repair and maintenance; however muscle stem cells (satellite cells, SCs), are deemed to have little impact on these processes. Therefore, the applicability of SC studies to attenuate muscle loss due to NMJ deterioration as observed in neuromuscular diseases and aging is ambiguous. We employed mice with an inducible Cre, and conditionally expressed DTA to deplete or GFP to track SCs. We found SC depletion exacerbated muscle atrophy and type transitions connected to neuromuscular disruption. Also, elevated fibrosis and further declines in force generation were specific to SC depletion and neuromuscular disruption. Fate analysis revealed SC activity near regenerating NMJs. Moreover, SC depletion aggravated deficits in reinnervation and post-synaptic morphology at regenerating NMJs. Therefore, our results propose a mechanism whereby further NMJ and skeletal muscle decline ensues upon SC depletion and neuromuscular disruption.
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Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. Work with mice was conducted in accordance with protocols approved by the University Committee on Animal Resources, University of Rochester Medical Center protocol(#101565/2013-002).
Copyright
© 2015, Liu et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Inducible depletion of adult skeletal muscle stem cells impairs the regeneration of neuromuscular junctions
eLife 4:e09221.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.09221
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