Some could be involved in bone and cartilage development such as SOX9, LRCH1, BMP2, COL4A3 and COL4A4, some might be related to muscle development such as MYOD1, MUSK, MYH1, MYH2, MYL9, MAP2K6 and MAP3K4, while others could be relevant to the insulin pathway such as PDX1, PTPN1, CTGFL and WISP2.
Moreover, the EGb 761 treatment was also associated with the up-regulation by 50 to 70% of genes specifically implicated in skeletal muscle development such as Follistatin (Fst), Follistatin related protein (Fstl1), BMP and activin membrane-bound inhibitor (Bambi), α2-macroglobulin (A2m), Activin receptor type I (Acvr1), embryonic Myosin heavy chain (Myh3) and Ryanodine receptor 3 (Ryr3).
The presence of unfused FCMs in gyc76C homozygous embryos and pkg21D RNAi-treated embryos suggests a role for cGMP signaling in early stages of muscle development, such as myoblast fusion.
We focus our attention on those transcription factors playing a role in either cardiac or skeletal muscle development, such as myostatin (Mstn), myocardin (Myocd), and MyoD family inhibitor (Mdfi).
Several studies have described that myogenic cells respond to myostatin by down-regulating the expression of key transcriptional regulators of muscle development such as Pax3, Pax7, p21, MyoD, Myf5 and Myog [ 23- 27, 45, 46], explaining its inhibitory effects in differentiation.
Group A is characterized with muscle organ development such as (striated) muscle cell differentiation and development, (skeletal) muscle fiber development, (extraocular) skeletal muscle tissue development, and striated muscle and pharyngeal muscle development.
Enriched biological functions at 90 days of gestation were involved in muscle development and reflected processes such as cell adhesion, signal transduction or skeletal muscle development.
For example, in Amaral et al.'s (2011) study, they identified a few genes relating to neuron function, growth, muscle development, metabolism and disease, such as MAPK8IP3, L3MBTL2, SLC22A17, ENO2, CACNG7, SPHK and FGFR2, under positive selection, which were also detected in our study.
Concerning the phenotypic results in later development, such as muscle fate, our data could be correlated with mouse data where methylation of H3K27 by EZH2 was shown to play an essential role in the repression of muscle-specific genes and where the demethylase activity of UTX on H3K27me3 was required to initiate muscle fate (Caretti et al., 2004; Seenundun et al., 2010).
The data gathered in this report serve as a valuable platform for the identification of circRNAs that influence muscle physiology, such as muscle development, remodeling, and regeneration.
In teleosts, target site polymorphism is found in a number of processes, such as muscle development and regeneration, photoreceptor morphogenesis, immune response, or craniofacial development, and it can have functional effects (Loh et al. 2011).
