Muscle Biology: Terminology

Here is my list of important terms in the field of muscle biolgy.  This post will be constantly updated as I learn more definitions through research.

Akt/mTOR pathway - an intracellular signaling pathway that primarily leads to an increase in protein synthesis

Canonical pathway - standard pathway once a ligand binds to a receptor

Frizzled (Fzd) receptors - a family of seven-pass transmembrane receptors cotaining a rich-cysteine domain for Wnt ligands

Insulin Growth-like Factors (IGFs) - a group of proteins that have similiar characteristics to insulin.  When IGF binds to its receptor a cascade of intracellular signaling molecules leads to an increase in protein synthesis 

Muscle atrophy - a decrease in muscle mass

Muscle dystrophy - a group of genetic muscle wasting diseases

Muscle hyperplasia - physiological proliferation increase in number of cells

Muscle hypertrophy - an increase in myofiber size through increased sarcoplasmic volume and/or increased contractile proteins

Myoblasts - skeletal muscle precursor cells that have the potentital to differentiate into myocytes

Myocyte - a muscle cell

Myofiber - multinucleate cell composed of numerous myofibrils

Myogenesis - the generation of new muscle tissue

Myogenic regulatory factors (MRFs)

Myotube - a developing skeletal muscle fiber

Sarcolemma - membrane of a muscle cell

Sarcopenia - loss of muscle mass due to ageing

Satellite cell - adult stem cells of skeletal muscle

Somite -  a segmental mass of the mesoderm in the embryo developing into muscles

Wnt - a family of signaling proteins that typically bind to Fzd receptors

Reference:

Maltzahn, J., Chang, N. C., Bentzinger, C. F., & Rudnicki, M. A. (2012). Wnt Signaling in myogenesis. Trends in Cell Biology