Enhancing Myoblast Fusion for Therapy of Muscular Dystrophies

Abstract

Skeletal muscle is a major organ comprising 30-40% of the human body mass. The coordination of processes resulting in mature muscle requires many genes, and their loss can result in debilitating muscle disorders. Of the strategies being developed to cure muscle diseases, enhancement of the natural process of muscle cell fusion in existing or introduced myogenic cells has great therapeutic potential. In this work, we determined whether a drug that stimulates proliferation and fusion of myoblasts could alleviate murine Duchenne muscular dystrophy. We also studied the necessity of a gene that is upregulated in early fusing human myoblast cultures and its role in muscle disease development.