The role of microRNA-1 and microRNA-206 in the proliferation and differentiation of bovine skeletal muscle satellite cells

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been found to play essential roles in muscle cell proliferation and differentiation. MicroRNA-1 (miR-1) and microRNA-206 (miR-206), which are similar and have the same seed sequence, have specific roles in modulating skeletal muscle proliferation and differentiation in vitro and in vivo. However, there is no information about their function during bovine skeletal muscle satellite cell development. In this study, the profiles of miR-1 and miR-206 and their biological functions in bovine skeletal muscle cell development was investigated. The target genes were predicted, and we used a dual-luciferase reporter assay to demonstrate that miR-1 and miR-206 directly targeted the 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) of paired-box transcription factor Pax7 and histone deacetylase 4 (HDAC4). We showed that miR-1 and miR-206 facilitate bovine skeletal muscle satellite cell myogenic differentiation by restricting the expression of their target gene and that inhibition of miR-1 and miR-206 increased the Pax7 and HDAC4 protein levels and substantially enhanced satellite cell proliferation. Therefore, our results revealed the mechanism in which miR-1 and miR-206 positively regulate bovine skeletal muscle satellite cell myogenic differentiation via Pax7 and HDAC4 downregulation.