Requirement of myomaker-mediated stem cell fusion for skeletal muscle hypertrophy

  1. Qingnian Goh
  2. Douglas P Millay  Is a corresponding author
  1. Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, United States

Abstract

Fusion of skeletal muscle stem/progenitor cells is required for proper development and regeneration, however the significance of this process during adult muscle hypertrophy has not been explored. In response to muscle overload after synergist ablation in mice, we show that myomaker, a muscle specific membrane protein essential for myoblast fusion, is activated mainly in muscle progenitors and not myofibers. We rendered muscle progenitors fusion-incompetent through genetic deletion of myomaker in muscle stem cells and observed a complete reduction of overload-induced hypertrophy. This blunted hypertrophic response was associated with a reduction in Akt and p70s6k signaling and protein synthesis, suggesting a link between myonuclear accretion and activation of pro-hypertrophic pathways. Furthermore, fusion-incompetent muscle exhibited increased fibrosis after muscle overload, indicating a protective role for normal stem cell activity in reducing myofiber strain associated with hypertrophy. These findings reveal an essential contribution of myomaker-mediated stem cell fusion during physiological adult muscle hypertrophy.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Qingnian Goh

    Department of Molecular Cardiovascular Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Douglas P Millay

    Depatment of Molecular Cardiovascular Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, United States
    For correspondence
    douglas.millay@cchmc.org
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5188-0720

Funding

Muscular Dystrophy Association

  • Douglas P Millay

Pew Charitable Trusts

  • Douglas P Millay

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (R01AR068286)

  • Douglas P Millay

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

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. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols (#2014-0051) of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. All surgery was performed under isoflurane anesthesia, and every effort was made to minimize suffering.

Copyright

© 2017, Goh & Millay

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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  1. Qingnian Goh
  2. Douglas P Millay
(2017)
Requirement of myomaker-mediated stem cell fusion for skeletal muscle hypertrophy
eLife 6:e20007.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.20007

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https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.20007

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