Inhibition of ubiquitin-specific protease 2 causes accumulation of reactive oxygen species, mitochondria dysfunction, and intracellular ATP decrement in C2C12 myoblasts.

Ubiquitin-specific protease 2 (USP2) is considered to participate in the differentiation of myoblasts to myotubes, however, its functions in myoblasts under growth conditions remain elusive. In this study, we analyzed the physiological roles of USP2 in myoblasts using Usp2 knockout (KO) C2C12 cells as well as a USP2 specific inhibitor. In addition to the disruption of differentiation, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/Cas9-generated Usp2KO cells exhibited inhibition of proliferation compared to parental C2C12 cells.