MmNeu3 sialidase over-expression in C2C12 myoblasts delayed muscle differentiation and induced hypertrophic myotubes formation

Recently we have begun to investigated the role of NEU3 in skeletal muscle differentiation, in particular we have demonstrated that in C2C12 myoblasts downregulation of NEU3 totally inhibits cell capability to differentiate and causes an high responsiveness of myoblasts to apoptosis. It has been shown also that the increase of GM3 levels caused epidermal growth factor receptor inhibition and down-regulation. In order to support the role of NEU3 in skeletal muscle differentiation we decided to stably overespress MmNEU3 in C2C12 cells by a lentiviral vector and to investigate the behaviour of the differentiation process. We found that NEU3 over-expressing C2C12 cells (a) delay differentiation and continue to proliferate for at least two more days than control cells; (b) when they enter the differentiation process, complete it very quickly; (c) form hypertrophic myotubes; (d) show an increased activity of the EGF-R signalling. Thus, this work further supports the central role of NEU3 as key modulator in skeletal muscle differentiation