Transcriptional pattern of TGF-β1 inhibitory effect on mouse C2C12 myoblasts differentiation

The aim of the present study was to define the effect of TGF-β1 on C2C12 myoblasts myogenesis. TGF-β1 together with its receptor is a negative auto-paracrine regulator of myogenesis, which influences the proliferation, differentiation, and functions of muscle cells. TGF-β1 exerts highly significant inhibitory effect on differentiation of C2C12 mouse myoblasts manifested by the impairment of cell fusion and very low expression of myosin heavy chain. The study of differentiating C2C12 mouse myoblasts treated with TGF-β1 revealed 502 genes (436 down-regulated and 66 up-regulated) with statistically different expression. TGF-β1-regulated genes were identified to be involved in 29 biological processes, 29 molecular functions groups and 59 pathways. The strongest inhibiting effect of TGF-β1 was observed in the cadherin and Wnt pathways. The key-genes that could play the role of TGF-β1 targets during myoblasts differentiation was identified such as: Max, Creb1, Ccna2, Bax, MdfI, Tef, Tubg1, Cxcl5, Rho, Calca and Lgals4.