Mammalian skeletal muscles are derived from mesoderm segments flanking the embryonic midline. Upon receiving inductive cues from the adjacent neural tube, lateral plate mesoderm, and surface ectoderm, muscle precursors start to delaminate, migrate to their final destinations and proliferate. Muscle precursor cells become committed to the myogenic fate, become differentiated muscle cells, and fuse to form myofibers. Myofibers then fuse together to form the muscle groups. Muscle precursor cells have the ability to proliferate, and differentiate during development, while a subset remains capable of regeneration and repair of local injuries in adulthood. When the process of muscle development is perturbed such as in muscular dystrophies and injuries, ways to intervene and allow for proper muscle development or repair are the focus of regenerative medicine. Thus, understanding the developmental program of muscle at the genetic, cellular, and molecular levels has become a major focus of skeletal muscle regeneration research in the last few years. 1. Introduction Movement and locomotion are common characteristics of all living animals. The vertebrate musculature system that includes cardiac, smooth, and skeletal muscles makes both activities possible. Skeletal muscle is the dominant type of musculature making up about 40% of the adult human body weight, and it is a key player in energy metabolism. Skeletal muscles are attached to bones in the body and their contractions are under voluntary control, unlike cardiac and smooth muscles. Skeletal muscles are composed of many bundles of long, thin, multinucleated myofibers that are made up from cells that systemically proliferate and differentiate throughout development. Adult mature muscles maintain a population of self-renewing cells, satellite cells, which are capable of regeneration and repair. 2. The Genesis of the Muscle Skeletal muscles of the trunk derive from the paraxial somitic mesoderm, whereas skeletal muscles of the head derive mostly from the prechordal and nonsomitic paraxial head mesoderm. Somites develop in a rostral (head) to caudal (tail) order as a result of the segmentation of the presomitic (paraxial) mesoderm that lies on each side of the neural tube and notochord [1]. Somites give rise to the progenitor cells of muscle, cartilage, bone, connective tissue, and dermis, forming between embryonic day (E) E8.0 and E13.0 in mice. As individual somites mature, they receive signals from the adjacent notochord, neural tube, ectoderm, and lateral plate mesoderm (LPM) [2]. In the trunk, the medial and
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