Myogenic cells of regenerating adult chicken muscle can fuse into myotubes after a single cell division in vivo.

Autoradiographic studies were carried out on regenerating muscles of adult chickens. Three different muscles of hens were injured, and tritiated thymidine (1 microCi/g) was injected at various times after injury to label replicating muscle precursors. Detailed comparisons of grain counts over premitotic nuclei in samples removed one hour after injection of tritiated thymidine, and of postmitotic myotube nuclei in samples removed 10 days after injury (when labeled precursors had fused to form myotubes), revealed how many times some labeled precursors had divided before fusing into myotubes. DNA synthesis in muscle precursors was initiated 30 h after injury. Grain counts of myotube nuclei indicated that many muscle precursors labeled at the onset of myogenic cell proliferation had divided only once, or twice, before fusing into myotubes. The relationship of these in vivo results to the cell lineage model of myogenesis is discussed.