Mechanism of increasing dystrophin-positive myofibers by myoblast transplantation: study using mdx/beta-galactosidase transgenic mice.

Female mdx/mdx mice were crossed with non-dystrophic transgenic males expressing the beta-galactosidase (beta-gal) gene under a muscle-specific promoter (TnILacZ1/29). All male offspring were mdx mice and about 50% of them also expressed the beta-gal gene. The beta-gal/mdx mice were selected as recipients for the transplantation of myoblasts from non-transgenic normal BALB/c mice. When host muscles were not irradiated before myoblast transplantation, 4.6% of the muscle fibers in host muscles were dystrophin positive 1 month after transplantation. Most of these dystrophin-positive muscle fibers were also beta-gal positive. About one quarter of these fibers are the result of reverse mutations; most of them have, however, been produced by fusion of donor myoblasts with host muscle fibers or with host myoblasts. The virtual absence of beta-gal-negative fibers indicates that there were no exclusively donor-donor fusions. When host muscles were irradiated before myoblast transplantation, roughly the same percentage (5.5%) of dystrophin-positive fibers were formed in the injected muscle, but 42% of them were beta-gal negative. These beta-gal-negative dystrophin-positive muscle fibers were formed by the exclusive fusion of donor myoblasts with one another rather than with host cells. This clearly indicates that myoblast transplantation can form completely new muscle fibers or muscle fiber segments when host satellite cell proliferation is reduced by irradiation. These newly formed muscle fibers had, however, a small diameter and additional myoblast transplantation may be required to increase their size. This situation has some similarities with findings in Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients of more than 6 years of age, who also have a limited proliferation capacity of their satellite cells.