Talk abstracts
Talk on Wednesday 11:00-11:20am submitted by Denis Guttridge
Discovering a new role for NF-kB in cell migration during neonatal muscle development
Denis Guttridge (Speaker selected by Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Graduate Program Students)
Abstract:
Skeletal muscle growth immediately following birth is a critical stage of development needed for proper body posture and locomotion. However, compared to embryogenesis and adulthood, the processes regulating the maturation of neonatal muscles is considerably less clear. Studies in the 1960s had predicted that muscle growth results from nuclear accretion of myoblasts preferentially at the tips of immature myofibers. Remarkably, since that time, little information has been added to resolve how myoblasts migrate to the ends of a fiber for nuclear accretion to occur. Here, we provide insight to this process by revealing a unique NF-κB dependent communication between NG2+ interstitial cells and myoblasts. NF-κB is active in NG2+ cells to promote myoblasts migration through cell-cell contact to the tips of growing myofibers. This occurs through expression of ephrinA5 from NG2+ cells, which we further deduce is an NF-κB target gene. Together, results suggest that NF-κB plays an important role in the development of newborn muscles to ensure proper myoblast migration for fiber growth.
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