Impaired Regeneration of Dystrophic Skeletal Myofibers Based on Ineffective Protein Utilization

A unifying concept in myofiber utilization of protein as a basis for muscular hypertrophy would implicate effects on viability of cells. Skeletal and cardiac myofibers would constitute post-mitotic cell phenotypes that developmentally are determined by structural organization and evolving participation of a homeostatic balance between production and effective utilization of specific protein moieties. Muscular dystrophies might be characterized as failed attempts at regeneration of myofibers subsequent to a variety of injuries based on sarcolemmal or other cell components including the nuclear membrane and sarcomere. Myofiber hypertrophy itself appears an abnormal attempt at compensation for a myofiber injury that involves also increase in intermediate filaments intracytoplasmically. Intermediate filament biology would strictly characterize not only the skeletal or cardiac myofiber, but also driving forces in the operative processes of hypertrophy and regeneration of the myofibers as post-mitotic highly differentiated cells.