Proteins play crucial role in muscle growth
When a muscle grows, because its owner is still growing too or has started exercising regularly, some of the stem cells in this muscle develop into new muscle cells.
The same thing happens when an injured muscle starts to heal. At the same time, however, the muscle stem cells must produce further stem cells - i.e., renew themselves - as their supply would otherwise be depleted very quickly. This requires that the cells involved in muscle growth communicate with each other.
Muscle growth is regulated by the Notch signaling pathway
Two years ago, a team of researchers led by Professor Carmen Birchmeier, head of the Developmental Biology/Signal Transduction Lab at the Berlin-based Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC), showed that the development of stem cells into muscle cells is regulated with the help of two proteins, Hes1 and MyoD, which are produced in the progenitor cells in an oscillatory man
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IMAGE: Immunofluorescence analysis of a group of proliferating stem cells associated with a muscle fiber (grey). The stem cells produce Dll1 (red) and MyoD (green). Two of the cells produces MyoG. view more
Credit: Birchmeier Lab, MDC
When a muscle grows, because its owner is still growing too or has started exercising regularly, some of the stem cells in this muscle develop into new muscle cells. The same thing happens when an injured muscle starts to heal. At the same time, however, the muscle stem cells must produce further stem cells - i.e., renew themselves - as their supply would otherwise be depleted very quickly. This requires that the cells involved in muscle growth communicate with each other.