Stability of chicken troponin T expression in cultured muscle cells

Cells prepared from chicken skeletal muscles of early developmental stages were cultured to study their troponin T isoform expression, using antisera specific to fast- and slow-muscle-type isoforms, and compared with the cells from later stages described in the previous study (Mashima at al., 1996). We found that cultured myogenic cells from chickens and chick embryos could be classified, as in the previous study, into two types, fast type and fast/slow type in which fast- and slow-muscle-type isoforms were coexpressed. Ratios of these two types of muscle cells varied depending on their origins and developmental stages, and fast/slow type cells were in the majority at early stages. Since two distinct populations of cells committed to myogenic cell lineages were supposed to give rise to the two types of myotubes, we investigated the intrinsic stability of troponin T expression of the cultured myogenic cells using the serial subcloning method. The results of clonal analysis suggested that the expression pattern of troponin T isoform in cultured muscle cells is stable and that myogenic cell lineages play an important role in giving rise to different muscle types.