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Table 1 The role of growth factors in skeletal muscle regeneration

From: Muscle injuries and strategies for improving their repair

Growth factors

Physiological effects, potential benefits

Shortcomings

Commentary

IGF-1

- Essential for muscle growth during development and regeneration.

- Promote myoblast proliferation and differentiation in vitro (Huard et al. 2002)

- Hypertrophic effect of IGF-1 (Barton-Davis et al. 1999)

- Serial injections of IGF-1 improve muscle healing in vivo (Menetrey et al. 2000).

- Existence of a muscle specific isoform of IGF-1 (mIGF-1) (Musaro et al. 1999; Musaro et al. 2004)

- Chemotactic for fibroblasts, increase collagen production, enhance fibrosis development

- IGF-1 play a central role in the enhancement of muscle regeneration-

- Anti-inflammatory actions of IGF-1 (Mourkioti and Rosenthal 2005; Tidball and Welc 2015)

HGF

- Promote myoblast proliferation and inhibit myoblast differentiation (Anderson 2016; Yin et al. 2013)

- Important role for satellite cell activation. Balance between the activation of satellite cells and their return to quiescence. (Chazaud 2010)

- Recently, it was shown that a second set of HGF production is crucial for inflammation resolution after injury (Proto et al. 2015)

- Injection of HGF into injured muscle increased myoblast numbers but blocked the regeneration process (Miller et al. 2000)

- HGF is important during the early phase of muscle regeneration, activate satellite cells

VEGF

- Important signaling protein that favor angiogenesis.

- Promote myoblast migration, proliferation and survival. (Arsic et al. 2004)

- VEGF administration improves muscle regeneration. (Messina et al. 2007; Deasy et al. 2009)

- Non regulated VEGF expression promote aberrant angiogenesis and fibrosis in skeletal muscle (Karvinen et al. 2011)

- Importance of the proximity between satellite cells and the microvasculature during muscle regeneration, role of VEGF

FGF

- Large family of mitogen involved in cell growth and survival

- FGF-6 has a muscle specific expression, stimulates satellite cell proliferation and promotes myogenic terminal differentiation (Floss et al. 1997)

- FGF-2 promote satellite cell proliferation and inhibit myogenic differentiation (Menetrey et al. 2000; Kastner et al. 2000)

- Stimulate fibroblast proliferation,

- FGF signaling plays a key role in muscle repair, blocking FGF signaling delay muscle regeneration (Saera-Vila et al. 2016).

TGF-β1

- Key regulator of the balance between muscle fibrosis and muscle regeneration

- Inhibits satellite cell proliferation and differentiation in vitro

- Excessive TGFβ1-induced deposition of ECM at the site of injury, fibrosis (Garg et al. 2015).

- Anti fibrotic therapy by blocking overexpression of TGF-β1 improve muscle regeneration. (Burks et al. 2011; Hwang et al. 2016)

PDGF-BB

- PDGF isoforms can regulate myoblast proliferation and differentiation in vitro (Yablonka-Reuveni et al. 1990)

- PDGF-BB stimulates satellite cell proliferation and inhibit their differentiation (Charge and Rudnicki 2004)

- Potent mitogen for fibroblasts

- Release from injured vessels and platelets, PDGF stimulates early skeletal muscle regeneration