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Updated: Dec 30, 2025

In Situ Immunofluorescent Staining of Autophagy in Muscle Stem Cells
Published on: June 12, 2017
MURF contributes to skeletal muscle atrophy through suppressing autophagy
Wei Ding1, Junjian Jiang2, Jianguang Xu2
1Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai, China.
Introduction:
Muscle atrophy due to denervation, immobilization, or unweighting inflicts large number of patients, and provides a huge challenge to modern medicine. MuRF-1 (muscle RING Finger 1), an E3 ubiquitin ligase, has been shown to be upregulated in atrophy muscle, while how MuRF-1 contributes to muscle atrophy remain elusive.
Method:
In the present study, we compared MuRF expression in skeletal muscle from denervation muscle atrophy patients or health control.
Results:
When MuRF is overexpressed, autophagy is considerably inhibited in skeletal cell C2C12, while autophagy is reversed if MuRF knocked down. Further analysis demonstrated that MuRF dampens skeletal muscle cell proliferation through downregulation of autophagy, which is an essential event for muscle atrophy.
Discussion:
Our study comes up with a new mechanism of MuRF for muscle atrophy, which potentially invoking a novel therapeutic approach for the disease.
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