Recent Developments in Breast Muscle Myopathies Associated with Growth in Poultry

The functional unit in skeletal muscle is the multinucleated myofiber, which is composed of parallel arrays of microfibrils. The myofiber and sarco-mere structure of skeletal muscle are established during embryogenesis, when mononuclear myoblast cells fuse to form multinucleated myotubes and develop into muscle fibers. With the myoblasts permanently unable to enter a proliferative state again after they fuse to form the multinucleated myotube, postnatal myofiber growth, muscle homeostasis, and myofiber regeneration are dependent on a myogenic stem cell, the satellite cell. Because the satellite cell is a partially differentiated stem cell controlling the state of skeletal muscle structure throughout the life of the bird, it can impact muscle development and structure, growth, and regeneration and, subsequently, meat quality. When myofibers are damaged, muscle repair is dependent on the satellite cells. Regenerated myofibers after the repair process should be similar to the original muscle fiber. Despite s...