Stem cells and plasticity of skeletal muscle cell differentiation: potential application to cell therapy for degenerative muscular diseases

摘要

Degenerative muscular diseases, such as muscular dystrophies, have been thenrepresentative targets of regenerative cell therapy. Although satellite cells play centralnroles in skeletal muscle regeneration that intrinsically occurs after muscle injury, theirnapplication to cell therapy is confronted by difficulties. Other stem cells expected to benapplicable to cell therapy include muscle-resident stem cells and nonmuscle-resident stemncells. Moreover, dedifferentiated cells of skeletal muscle might provide unique system forncell therapy. Terminally differentiated myotubes have plasticity of differentiation andndedifferentiate under certain experimental conditions, including the expression of SV40nlarge T antigen or the homeobox gene Msx1. The dedifferentiated cells exhibitnmultipotency to transdifferentiate into multiple mesenchymal origin cells. In addition,nfibroblasts or undifferentiated myoblasts treated with a drug acquire multipotency. Thesencells may open new doors in cell therapy.