The Mexican Cavefish Mount a Rapid and Sustained Regenerative Response Following Skeletal Muscle Injury

Abstract

Physical injury and tissue damage is prevalent throughout the animal kingdom, with the ability to quickly and efficiently regenerate providing a selective advantage. The skeletal muscle possesses a uniquely large regenerative capacity within most vertebrates, and has thus become an important model for investigating cellular processes underpinning tissue regeneration. Following damage, the skeletal muscle mounts a complex regenerative cascade centered around dedicated muscle stem cells termed satellite cells. In non-injured muscle, satellite cells remain in a quiescent state, expressing the canonical marker Pax7 (Chen et al. 2020). However, following injury, satellite cells exit quiescence, enter the cell cycle to initiate proliferation, asymmetrically divide, and in many cases terminally differentiate into myoblasts, ultimately fusing with surrounding myoblasts and pre-existing muscle fibers to resolve the regenerative process (Chen et al. 2020).