ABSTRACT: In vitro experiments have contributed to numerous fields of knowledge, including fish skeletal muscle. Despite improved strategies, in vitro assays still show discrepancies with in vivo systems, especially for non-model organisms. In this sense, we characterized the transcriptional profile of pacus (Piaractus mesopotamicus) muscle cells in vitro and in vivo. Processes related to proliferation, glycolytic metabolism, and extracellular matrix were enriched in vitro, while energy production, muscle contraction, and amino acid pro-cessing were enriched in vivo. Through qPCR, the genes fn1a (fibronectin 1a), hk1 (hexokinase 1) and ctnnb1 (catenin beta 1), respectively related to extracellular matrix, glycolytic metabo-lism, and cell proliferation and differentiation, were highly expressed in vitro. The genes ckma (creatine kinase, muscle a), acat1 (acetyl-CoA acetyltransferase 1), mdh2 (malate dehydrogenase 2) and pkmb (pyruvate kinase M1/2b), respectively associated with ATP production, fatty acid oxidation, oxidative and glycolytic metabolism, and the genes musk (muscle, skeletal, receptor tyrosine kinase), chrna1 (cholinergic receptor, nicotinic, alpha 1) and clu (clusterin), in-volved in cell signaling, were highly expressed in vivo. Our findings may support the de-velopment of molecular strategies to enhance muscle cell culture technology and expand knowledge for in vitro meat production, improving sustainable fish farming.