When muscle cells need repair, they use odour-detecting tools found in the nose to start the process, researchers have discovered. The results are published online and scheduled for publication in the November issue of the journal Developmental Cell.
Found on the surfaces of neurones inside the nose, odorant receptors are molecules that bind and respond to substances wafting through the air. Researchers have shown that one particular odorant receptor gene, MOR23, is turned on in muscle cells undergoing repair.
‘Normally MOR23 is not turned on when the tissue is at rest, so we wouldn’t have picked it up without looking specifically at muscle injury,’ says Grace Pavlath, PhD, professor of pharmacology at Emory University School of Medicine. ‘There is no way we would have guessed this.’
Interfering with MOR23 inhibits muscle cells’ ability to migrate, stick to each other and form long fibres, Pavlath and her colleagues showed. In addition, MOR23 is the first molecule found to influence the process of myofibre branching, a form of degeneration seen in muscular dystrophies and ageing.

Science Centric | News | Investigating muscle repair, scientists follow their noses