Immortalized Human Skeletal Muscle Myoblasts

Skeletal muscle regenerates by the proliferation of myoblasts that ultimately fuse and become incorporated into multinucleated myotubes. The myotubes then later mature into myofibers. This process occurs during the embryonic histogenesis of muscle; in postnatal muscle regeneration in response to injury, or in diseases such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The fusion of myoblasts is specific to skeletal muscle and myoblasts that do not form muscle fibers differentiate into satellite cells. Skeletal muscle myoblasts express the FGF receptor and IGF expression increase during myoblast differentiation in culture. Immortalized Human Skeletal Muscle Myoblasts in culture is a convenient in vitro model for the study of cellular development and differentiation, insulin metabolism and tissue repair. They are also useful tools to stablish in vitro disease models for High Throughput and High Content Screening.