Polarity in skeletal muscle cells is induced by innervation

Abstract

Skeletal muscle fibers are specialized at the site of the neuromuscular synapse, and this polarity is acquired during development and maintained in the adult as a consequence of inductive interactions between nerve and muscle. This review summarizes recent experiments which demonstrate that two different signalling pathways, a transcriptional pathway and a post-translational pathway, have an important role in the formation and maintenance of the neuromuscular synapse and mediate the induction of polarity in skeletal muscle fibers.