Chromatin modification and muscle differentiation

Abstract

Skeletal muscle differentiation is a multistep process, which begins with the commitment of multi-potent mesodermal precursor cells to the muscle fate. These committed cells, the myoblasts, then differentiate and fuse into multinucleated myotubes. The final step of muscle differentiation is the maturation of differentiated myotubes into myofibres. Skeletal muscle development requires the coordinated expression of various transcription factors like the members of the myocyte enhancer binding-factor 2 family and the muscle regulatory factors. These transcription factors, in collaboration with chromatin-remodelling complexes, act in specific combinations and within complex transcriptional regulatory networks to achieve skeletal myogenesis. Additional factors involved in the epigenetic regulation of this process continue to be discovered. In this review, the authors discuss the recent discoveries in the epigenetic regulation of myogenesis. They also summarise the role of chromatin-modifying enzymes regulating muscle gene expression. These different factors are often involved in multiple steps of muscle differentiation and have redundant activities. Altogether, the recent findings have allowed a better understanding of myogenesis and have raised new hopes for the pharmacological development of new therapies aimed at muscle degeneration diseases, such as myotonic dystrophy or Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Keywords::

• chromatin remodelling
• differentiation
• skeletal muscle

Acknowledgements

The authors’ laboratory is supported by the Association Française contre les Myopathies (AFM), the Ligue Nationale contre le Cancer (LNCC), the Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer (ARC), the Fondation Bettencourt-Schueller, and the European grant LSHG-CT-2004-502950. H Yahi and V Guasconi were recipients of fellowships from the Ligue Nationale contre le Cancer, and O Philipot from Ministère de la Recherche.