Skeletal Muscles Do Not Undergo Apoptosis During Either Atrophy or Programmed Cell Death-Revisiting the Myonuclear Domain Hypothesis

Lawrence Schwartz published a review/commentary in 2019 in Frontiers in Physiology that described work from his lab and others demonstrating that skeletal muscles do not undergo apoptosis, a well studied mechanism of cell death. This observation has significant implications for the exercise physiology and the fate of muscles.

The work was picked up by the media and resulted in stories in NPR, BBC, and many news outlets around the world. Recently, the paper achieved more than 40,000 views.

Much of this work is based on their study of the intersegmental muscles (ISMs) from the tobacco hawkmoth Manduca sexta. These giant cells undergo sequential programs of atrophy and death at the end of metamorphosis.

Read more HERE!

More recently, the Schwartz Lab had two major papers published that follow up on the original study. These papers detail all of the changes in gene expression that mediate muscle atrophy and death, identify the molecular mechanisms that mediate cell death, and describe a new signal transduction pathway that includes two new genes (discovered in his lab!).