Centre de Biologie du Développement

by Jonathan Enriquez, Mathilde de Taffin, Michèle Crozatier, Alain Vincent, and Laurence Dubois. Developmental Biology, in press. The genetic and molecular mechanisms that build up muscle diversity are still poorly understood. Muscle diversity is first revealed by the unique patterns of identity transcription factors that accompany muscle progenitor segregation and specification. J. Enriquez et al. have addressed the question of, when and how, a combinatorial code of identity transcription factors is translated into muscle specific properties by studying the role of the Collier and Nautilus/D-MyoD identity transcription factors that are expressed in partly overlapping subset of muscle progenitors. This study highlights: -A temporal sequence of selection/specification of dorso-lateral muscle progenitors. -The Stepwise combinatorial coding of muscle identity and morphology. -A dual function, generic and muscle-specific, of Nau/MyoD -Two steps in the muscle-tendon targeting process.