Signals of Ezh2, Src, and Akt Involve in myostatin-Pax7 pathways regulating the myogenic fate determination during the sheep myoblast proliferation and differentiation

PLoS One. 2015 Mar 26;10(3):e0120956. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0120956. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Myostatin and Pax7 have been well documented individually, however, the mechanism by which Myostatin regulates Pax7 is seldom reported. Here, based on muscle transcriptome analysis in Texel (Myostatin mutant) and Ujumqin (wild type) sheep across the five fetal stages, we constructed and examined the Myostatin-Pax7 pathways in muscle. Then we validated the signals by RNAi in the proliferating and differentiating sheep myoblasts in vitro at mRNA, protein, and cell morphological levels. We reveal that Myostatin signals to Pax7 at least through Ezh2, Src, and Akt during the sheep myoblast proliferation and differentiation. Other signals such as p38MAPK, mTOR, Erk1/2, Wnt, Bmp2, Smad, Tgfb1, and p21 are most probably involved in the Myostatin-affected myogenic events. Myostatin knockdown significantly reduces the counts of nucleus and myotube, but not the fusion index of myoblasts during cell differentiation. In addition, findings also indicate that Myostatin is required for normal myogenic differentiation of the sheep myoblasts, which is different from the C2C12 myoblasts. We expand the regulatory network of Myostatin-Pax7 pathways and first illustrate that Myostatin as a global regulator participates in the epigenetic events involved in myogenesis, which contributes to understand the molecular mechanism of Myostatin in regulation of myogenesis.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cell Differentiation
  • Cell Proliferation
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation
  • Gene Knockdown Techniques
  • MAP Kinase Signaling System
  • Muscle Development
  • Muscle, Skeletal / metabolism
  • Myoblasts / cytology*
  • Myoblasts / metabolism*
  • Myostatin / genetics
  • Myostatin / metabolism*
  • PAX7 Transcription Factor / genetics
  • PAX7 Transcription Factor / metabolism*
  • Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 / genetics
  • Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 / metabolism*
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-akt / genetics
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-akt / metabolism*
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins pp60(c-src) / genetics
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins pp60(c-src) / metabolism*
  • RNA Interference
  • Sheep
  • Signal Transduction*

Substances

  • Myostatin
  • PAX7 Transcription Factor
  • Polycomb Repressive Complex 2
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins pp60(c-src)
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-akt

Grants and funding

The research was supported by the National Key Technology R&D Program of China (2011BAD28B05-2), and the National Meat Sheep System Specialist Program. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.