Expression of basic fibroblast growth factor results in the decrease of myostatin mRNA in murine C2C12 myoblasts

During the development and regeneration of skeletal muscle, many growth factors, such as basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF, FGF-2) and myostatin, have been shown to play regulating roles. bFGF contributes to promote proliferation and to inhibit differentiation of skeletal muscle, whereas myostatin plays a series of contrasting roles. In order to elucidate whether the expression of bFGF has any relationship with the expression of myostatin in skeletal muscle cells, we constructed a eukaryotic expression vector for the expression of exogenous bFGF in murine C2C12 myoblasts. Quantitative RT-PCR assays indicated that with the increase of the expression of exogenous bFGF gene, the expression of endogenous myostatin gene was suppressed at mRNA level and protein level.