Survival Motor Neuron Deficiency Slows Myoblast Fusion through Reduced Myomaker and Myomixer Expression

Researchers showed that survival motor neuron (SMN)-deficient myoblasts readily fused with wild-type myoblasts, demonstrating fusion competency. Conditioned media from wild type differentiating myoblasts did not rescue the fusion deficit of SMN-deficient cells, suggesting that compromised fusion may have primarily been a result of altered membrane dynamics at the cell surface.