Regulation of adult muscle stem cell quiescence by Notch signaling

Adult skeletal muscles can regenerate after repeated trauma, yet our understanding of how adult muscle satellite (stem) cells (MuSCs) restore muscle integrity and homeostasis after regeneration is limited. In the adult mouse, MuSCs are quiescent and located between the basal lamina and the myofibre. After injury, they re-enter the cell cycle, proliferate, differentiate and fuse to restore the damaged fibre. By analyzing the Notch targetome and utilizing mouse genetics, I demonstrate that Notch maintains MuScs in a quiescent state by directly regulating extracellular matrix proteins and specific microRNAs (Baghdadi M et al., Nature 2018 In press; Baghdadi M et al., Under revision at Cell Stem Cell 2018).