Don't Move A Muscle: Evolutionary Insight Into Myogenesis

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Don't Move A Muscle: Evolutionary Insight Into Myogenesis

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=58390

In a paper released online ahead of its scheduled December 15th

publication date, Dr. Krause (NIH) and colleagues detail the

transcription network that drives muscle development in the

roundworm C. elegans, and make a strong argument for an

evolutionarily conserved program of myogenesis in all animals. Dr.

Krause and colleagues demonstrate that three transcription factors -

HLH-1, UNC-120 and HND-1 - redundantly control body wall muscle

development in C. elegans. As the corresponding mammalian factors

play important roles in directing vertebrate myogenesis, the authors

propose that all animal muscle cell types (skeletal, smooth and

cardiac muscle in vertebrates; and bodywall, smooth and

cardiac/pharyngeal muscle in invertebrates) have arisen from a

common ancestral precursor. Dr. Krause emphasizes

that " understanding the redundancy built into worm muscle

development reveals that the core transcriptional regulators of

myogenesis are, as we would predict, conserved across animals. "