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The B-cell maturation factor Blimp-1 specifies vertebrate slow-twitch muscle fiber identity in response to Hedgehog signaling.
- Source :
- Nature Genetics; Jan2004, Vol. 36 Issue 1, p88-93, 6p, 30 Color Photographs
- Publication Year :
- 2004
-
Abstract
- Vertebrate skeletal muscles comprise distinct fiber types that differ in their morphology, contractile function, mitochondrial content and metabolic properties. Recent studies identified the transcriptional coactivator PGC-1a as a key mediator of the physiological stimuli that modulate fiber-type plasticity in postembryonic development. Although myoblasts become fated to differentiate into distinct kinds of fibers early in development, the identities of regulatory proteins that determine embryonic fiber-type specification are still obscure. Here we show that the gene u-boot (ubo), a mutation in which disrupts the induction of embryonic slow-twitch fibers, encodes the zebrafish homolog of Blimp-1, a SET domain-containing transcription factor that promotes the terminal differentiation of B lymphocytes in mammals. Expression of ubo is induced by Hedgehog (Hh) signaling in prospective slow muscle precursors, and its activity alone is sufficient to direct slow-twitch fiber-specific development by naive myoblasts. Our data provide the first molecular insight into the mechanism by which a specific group of muscle precursors is driven along a distinct pathway of fiber-type differentiation in response to positional cues in the vertebrate embryo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- MUSCLES
PROMOTERS (Genetics)
TRANSCRIPTION factors
MYOBLASTS
ANIMAL mutation
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 10614036
- Volume :
- 36
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Nature Genetics
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 11843307
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1038/ng1280