(Press-News.org) Muscles have a pool of stem cells which provides a source for muscle growth and for regeneration of injured muscles. The stem cells must reside in special niches of the muscle for efficient growth and repair. The developmental biologists Dr. Dominique Bröhl and Prof. Carmen Birchmeier of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch have elucidated how these stem cells colonize these niches. At the same time, they show that the stem cells weaken when, due to a mutation, they locate outside of the muscle fibers instead of in their stem cell niches (Developmental Cell, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2012.07.014)*.
Muscle stem cells, also called satellite cells, colonize a niche that is located between the plasma membrane of the muscle cell and the surrounding basal lamina. Already in newborns these niches contain satellite cells from which both muscle cells and new stem cells can be generated.
Weakened stem cells
In the present study Dr. Bröhl and Professor Birchmeier showed that mouse muscle progenitor cells lacking components of the Notch signaling pathway cannot colonize their niche. Instead the muscle progenitor cells locate in tissue between the muscle fibers. The developmental biologists view this as the cause for the weakening of the muscles. The stem cells that are "in the wrong place" are no longer as potent as they originally were and hardly contribute to muscle growth.
In addition, the Notch signaling pathway has a second function in muscle development. It prevents the differentiation of stem cells into muscle cells through suppression of the muscle developmental factor MyoD and thus ensures that there will always be a pool of stem cells for muscle repair and regeneration. In the future this work could gain in importance for research on muscle regeneration and muscle weakness.
###
*Colonization of the Satellite Cell Niche by Skeletal Muscle Progenitor Cells Depends on Notch Signals
Dominique Bröhl1, Elena Vasyutina1,#, Maciej T. Czajkowski1, Joscha Griger1, Claudia Rassek1, Hans-Peter Rahn2, Bettina Purfürst3, Hagen Wende1 and Carmen Birchmeier1*
1Developmental Biology/Signal Transduction Group, 2Preparative Flow Cytometry and 3Electron Microscopy Core Facility
Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine, Robert-Rössle-Str. 10, 13125 Berlin, Germany
Present address: Department of Medicine 1, University of Cologne, Kerpener Str. 62, 50924 Cologne, Germany
A photo of muscle stem cells can be downloaded from the Internet at:
http://www.mdc-berlin.de/en/index.html
Contact:
Barbara Bachtler
Press Department
Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch
in the Helmholtz Association
Robert-Rössle-Straße 10; 13125 Berlin, Germany
Phone: +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 96; Fax: +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 33
e-mail: presse@mdc-berlin.de
http://www.mdc-berlin.de/
At the right place at the right time -- new insights into muscle stem cells
2012-09-17
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Added benefit of Cannabis sativa for spasticity due to multiple sclerosis is not proven
2012-09-17
An extract from the plant Cannabis sativa (trade name Sativex®) was approved in May 2011 for patients suffering from moderate to severe spastic paralysis and muscle spasms due to multiple sclerosis (MS). In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the "Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products" (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether the new drug, which is used as a mouth spray, offers an added benefit over the optimized standard therapy. However, no such added benefit can be inferred from the dossier, ...
Rapid intensification of global struggle for land
2012-09-17
The earth's limited surface is expected to stretch to everything: food for soon to be nine billion people, feed for our beef cattle and fowl, fuel for our cars, forests for our paper, cotton for our clothes. What is more, the earth's forests are preferably to be left untouched to stabilise the climate. Human ecologist and economist Kenneth Hermele will shortly be defending a thesis at Lund University, Sweden, in which he demonstrates that the struggle for land is intensifying rapidly.
Kenneth Hermele has conducted field studies in Brazil, where sugar cane has been cultivated ...
Children evaluate educational games
2012-09-17
Is it possible to create suitable and amusing educational computer games? Can you use qualities from other types of games? And what do the children really think of these kinds of games? Wolmet Barendregt from The University of Gothenburg, conducts research on children's game playing, how we can support learning with design and include the children in the design process.
And Wolmet Barendregt certainly involves the children very much in her research. During the Science Festival's school program in April this year, over a hundred preschool children attended a creative game ...
Spacetime ripples from dying black holes could help reveal how they formed
2012-09-17
Researchers from Cardiff University have discovered a new property of black holes: their dying tones could reveal the cosmic crash that produced them.
Black holes are regions of space where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape and so isolated black holes are truly dark objects and don't emit any form of radiation.
However, black holes that get deformed, because of other black holes or stars crashing into them, are known to emit a new sort of radiation, called gravitational waves, which Einstein predicted nearly a hundred years ago.
Gravitational waves ...
Cardiff scientists bid to develop anthrax vaccine to counteract world bioterrorism threat
2012-09-17
A team of Cardiff University scientists is leading new research to develop a vaccine against anthrax to help counteract the threat of bioterrorism.
Working with scientists from the Republic of Georgia, Turkey and the USA, Professor Les Baillie from Cardiff University's School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is leading a NATO project to tackle the potential misuse of anthrax.
"Currently the majority of the world's population is susceptible to infection with Bacillus anthracis the bacterium which causes anthrax," according to Professor Baillie, who leads ...
Proof of added benefit of apixaban in hip replacement
2012-09-17
The clot-inhibiting drug apixaban (trade name: Eliquis®) was approved in May 2011 for the prevention of thrombosis (blood clots) after operations to replace a hip or knee joint. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the "Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products" (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined the added benefit of apixaban.
IQWiG found proof of minor added benefit for adult patients who had undergone hip replacement: symptomatic clots in the deep veins of the leg occurred less frequently with ...
Behavior issues are a bigger headache for children with migraines
2012-09-17
Los Angeles, (17 September 2012). Kids who get migraine headaches are much more likely than other children to also have behavioral difficulties, including social and attention issues, and anxiety and depression. The more frequent the headaches, the greater the effect, according to research out now in the journal Cephalagia, published by SAGE.
Marco Arruda, director of the Glia Institute in São Paulo, Brazil, together with Marcelo Bigal of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York studied 1,856 Brazilian children aged 5 to 11. The authors say that this is the ...
Considerably more patients may benefit from effective antidiabetic drug
2012-09-17
The antidiabetic drug metformin is not prescribed for patients with reduced kidney function because the risk of adverse effects has been regarded as unacceptably high. A study at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has found that the risks have been substantially overrated. As a result, many more patients with diabetes may be able to enjoy the benefits of the medication.
Type 2 diabetes, a very common condition, is increasingly prevalent around the world. Keeping diabetes under control and preventing complications requires not only lifestyle changes, ...
Eating well during pregnancy reduces baby's obesity risk regardless of mom's size
2012-09-17
Bethesda, MD — If you are overweight and pregnant, your baby isn't destined to a life of obesity after all, according to a new research report published online in The FASEB Journal. In the report, a team of U.S. scientists show that modifying fat intake during pregnancy to a moderate level is enough to benefit the child regardless of the mother's size. Specifically, they found that a protein called "SIRT1" rewrites a developing fetus' histone code, which affects his or her "epigenetic likelihood" of being overweight or obese throughout his or her lifetime.
"We are finding ...
Only children are significantly more likely to be overweight
2012-09-17
Children who grow up without siblings have a more than 50 percent higher risk of being overweight or obese than children with siblings. This is the finding of a study of 12,700 children in eight European countries, including Sweden, published in Nutrition and Diabetes. The University of Gothenburg, Sweden, was one of the participating universities in the study.
The study was conducted under the framework of the European research project Identification and prevention of Dietary and lifestyle-induced health EFfects In Children and infantS (IDEFICS), where researchers from ...