The Research Group on Cell Biology is led by Dra. Pura Muñoz-Cánoves. The group focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying adult muscle regeneration and growth. They work with mouse muscle stem cells (satellite cells) and isolated cultured myofibers with associated satellite cells, as the best physiological muscle models ex vivo. They use in vivomodels for skeletal muscle regeneration and atrophy/hypertrophy in genetically modified mice (Cre-LoxP system) and models of human muscle diseases (DMD), and electroporation techniques to modulating gene expression in mouse muscle at wish.
The main research lines are:
- To gain insight into the signal transduction-coupled transcriptional mechanisms regulating muscle cell proliferation versus differentiation.
- To gain understanding of the mechanisms regulating growth of adult skeletal muscle, by identifying extracellular and intracellular mediators of this process.
- To decipher the mechanisms leading to fibrosis development in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD).