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Updated: Apr 13, 2026
Modeling Myotonic Dystrophy 1 in C2C12 Myoblast Cells
Published on: July 29, 2016
miR-487b, miR-3963 and miR-6412 delay myogenic differentiation in mouse myoblast-derived C2C12 cells
Naoki Katase1, Kumiko Terada2, Takahiro Suzuki3
1Department of Molecular and Developmental Biology, Kawasaki Medical School, 577 Matsushima, Kurashiki, Okayama, 701-0192, Japan. katase@med.kawasaki-m.ac.jp.
Background:
Skeletal muscle differentiation is a multistep, complex pathway in which several important signaling molecules are involved. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs), endogenous non-coding small RNAs that regulate mRNAs, have been proposed to be involved in skeletal muscle differentiation. In this study, we identified skeletal muscle differentiation-associated miRNAs by comparing miRNA expression profiles between C2C12 cells and Wnt4 over-expressing C2C12 cells (W4-08), which can spontaneously differentiate into myotubes.
Results:
We identified miR-206, miR-133a, and miR-133b as up-regulated miRNAs and miR-487b, miR-3963 and miR-6412 as down-regulated miRNAs in differentiating cells. We focused on the down-regulated miRNAs because their functions were largely unknown. Transfection of mimics of these miRNAs into C2C12 cells resulted in significantly reduced expression of myogenic differentiation markers, including troponin T and myosin heavy chain fast type and slow type, but did not affect the expression of the myogenic transcription factors, MyoD and myogenin.
Conclusions:
These miRNAs were characterized as new myogenic differentiation-associated miRNAs which may delay late myogenic differentiation or maturation.
