Nuclear glucocorticoid receptor binding in L6 skeletal muscle cells in culture

Mechanisms underlying glucocorticoid hormone actions on skeletal muscle remain incompletely understood. This problem may be amenable to solution with a simple cell culture system in which the hormonal environment can be controlled. In this report, we demonstrate that the L6 muscle cell line may provide such a system. These cells, which possess many morphological and functional characteristics of skeletal muscle, originate as mononuclear myoblasts, which fuse to form multinucleated myotubes. L6 myoblasts and myotubes contain an intracellular glucocorticoid receptor that has binding parameters and ligand specificity similar to those of glucocorticoid receptors of classical glucocorticoid target tissues. A major advantage of the use of cultured cells is ease of isolation of myonuclei that display specific glucocorticoid receptor binding. L6 muscle cells should provide a valuable model system for further studies of the mechanisms of glucocorticoid hormone actions on muscle.