Nature Communications (Dec 2020)

Nuclear numbers in syncytial muscle fibers promote size but limit the development of larger myonuclear domains

  • Alyssa A. W. Cramer,
  • Vikram Prasad,
  • Einar Eftestøl,
  • Taejeong Song,
  • Kenth-Arne Hansson,
  • Hannah F. Dugdale,
  • Sakthivel Sadayappan,
  • Julien Ochala,
  • Kristian Gundersen,
  • Douglas P. Millay

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20058-7
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 14

Abstract

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Skeletal muscle is composed of syncytial myofibres, each containing hundreds of nuclei. Through genetic reduction of the number of nuclei per myofibre, the authors confirm that more nuclei produce larger cells but myofibres with fewer nuclei adaptively compensate leading to larger and functional myonuclear domains.