Long-Term Endurance Exercise in Humans Stimulates Cell Fusion of Myoblasts along with Fusogenic Endogenous Retroviral Genes In Vivo.

ABSTRACT: Myogenesis is defined as growth, differentiation and repair of muscles where cell fusion of myoblasts to multinucleated myofibers is one major characteristic. Other cell fusion events in humans are found with bone resorbing osteoclasts and placental syncytiotrophoblasts. No unifying gene regulation for natural cell fusions has been found. We analyzed skeletal muscle biopsies of competitive cyclists for muscle-specific attributes and expression of human endogenous retrovirus (ERV) envelope genes due to their involvement in cell fusion of osteoclasts and syncytiotrophoblasts. Comparing muscle biopsies from post- with the pre-competitive seasons a significant 2.25-fold increase of myonuclei/mm fiber, a 2.38-fold decrease of fiber area/nucleus and a 3.1-fold decrease of satellite cells (SCs) o

SUBMITTER: Frese S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4495930 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature