Ascorbic acid facilitates chicken myoblast fusion in vitro.

Addition of low concentrations of ascorbic acid (5 micrograms/ml to 10 micrograms/ml) to myogenic chick embryo cultures resulted in an early fusion. At 30 h cultures receiving small amounts of ascorbic acid presented fusion rates 3 times that of the control. However, control rates of fusion were not different from those of experimentals at 50 h. No such effect was seen with ascorbic acid added at 24 h of culture, or with ascorbic acid addition to a calcium-deprived system. These findings demonstrate that the calcium binding properties of ascorbic acid can induce precocious myogenic fusion.