Globular adiponectin induces differentiation and fusion of skeletal muscle cells

The growing interest in skeletal muscle regeneration is associated with the opening of new therapeutic strategies for muscle injury after trauma, as well as several muscular degenerative pathologies, including dystrophies, muscular atrophy, and cachexia. Studies focused on the ability of extracellular factors to promote myogenesis are therefore highly promising. We now report that an adipocyte-derived factor, globular adiponectin (gAd), is able to induce muscle gene expression and cell differentiation. gAd, besides its well-known ability to regulate several metabolic functions in muscle, including glucose uptake and consumption and fatty acid catabolism, is able to block cell cycle entry of myoblasts, to induce the expression of specific skeletal muscle markers such as myosin heavy chain or caveolin-3, as well as to provoke cell fusion into multinucleated syncytia and, finally, muscle fibre formation. gAd exerts its pro-differentiative activity through redox-dependent activation of p38, Akt and 5'-AMP-activated protein kinase pathways. Interestingly, differentiating myoblasts are autocrine for adiponectin, and the mimicking of pro-inflammatory settings or exposure to oxidative stress strongly increases the production of the hormone from differentiating cells. These data suggest a novel function of adiponectin, directly coordinating the myogenic differentiation program and serving an autocrine function during skeletal myogenesis.