Osteogenic properties of human myogenic progenitor cells.

Here, we identified human myogenic progenitor cells coexpressing Pax7, a marker of muscle satellite cells and bone-specific alkaline phosphatase, a marker of osteoblasts, in regenerating muscle. To determine whether human myogenic progenitor cells are able to act as osteoprogenitor cells, we cultured both primary and immortalized progenitor cells derived from the healthy muscle of a nondystrophic woman. The undifferentiated myogenic progenitors spontaneously expressed two osteoblast-specific proteins, bone-specific alkaline phosphatase and Runx2, and were able to undergo terminal osteogenic differentiation without exposure to an exogenous inductive agent such as bone morphogenetic proteins.

Immortalization of human myogenic progenitor cell clone retaining multipotentiality.

Human myogenic cells have limited ability to proliferate in culture. Although forced expression of telomerase can immortalize some cell types, telomerase alone delays senescence of human primary cultured myogenic cells, but fails to immortalize them. In contrast, constitutive expression of both telomerase and the E7 gene from human papillomavirus type 16 immortalizes primary human myogenic cells.

Victims of physical abuse among patients with cancer referred to psychiatric clinic in a cancer center hospital: a pilot study.

Objective: Physical abuse is one of the most important public health problems, but little is known about physical abuse of cancer patients. The objects of this study are (1) to identify whether cancer patients have sustained physical abuse; (2) to explore clinical characteristics of the abused patients.

Methods: We reviewed 584 cancer patients referred to our psychiatry clinic by a cancer center hospital and investigated whether there were victims of physical abuse among these patients.

Generation of different fates from multipotent muscle stem cells.

Although neuronal and mesenchymal stem cells exhibit multipotentiality, this property has not previously been demonstrated for muscle stem cells. We now show that muscle satellite cells of adult mice are able to differentiate into osteoblasts, adipocytes and myotubes. Undifferentiated muscle progenitor cells derived from a single satellite cell co-expressed multiple determination genes including those for MyoD and Runx2, which are specific for myogenic and osteogenic differentiation, respectively.