Table 2.

Partial list of gene products identified as critical for myoblast fusion in mammals and vertebrates

Protein	Proposed function	Localization	References
Caveolin-3	Required for myoblast–myoblast fusion	Membrane	Galbiati et al. (78)
VLA-4	Myoblast alignment	Membrane	Rosen et al. (79)
VCAM-1	Cell adhesion	Membrane	Rosen et al. (79)
NFATC2	Regulation of myotube growth	Cytoplasm/nucleus	Horsley et al. (58)
PGF2α	Activation of NFATC2	Extracellular matrix	Horsley and Pavlath (65)
IL-4	Promotion of fusion of myoblasts with growing myotube	Extracellular matrix	Horsley et al. (59)
Netrin-3	Promote myotube formation	Membrane	Kang et al. (69)
Neogenin	Netrin receptor and promotion	Membrane	Kang et al. (69)
	of myotube formation
Myoferlin	Promote membrane fusion	Membrane	Doherty et al. (61)
DGK-ζ	Regulation of actin reorganization	Membrane	Abramovici and Gee (80)
Prostacyclin	Regulation of myoblast motility/promotion of fusion	Secreted	Bondesen et al. (64)
PGI2	Prostacyclin receptor	Membrane	Bondesen et al. (64)
CD9	Cell surface protein interaction	Membrane	Tachibana and Hemler (81)
β1 integrin	CD9 cell surface expression	Membrane	Schwander et al. (82)
Mannose receptor	Myoblast migration	Membrane	Jansen and Pavlath (67)
CD164	Myoblast migration	Membrane	Bae et al. (66)
Trio	Rac1 regulation	Cytoplasm	Charrasse et al. (83)
M-cadherin	Cell adhesion and Rac1 regulation	Membrane	Charrasse et al. (83)
Dock1/Dock5	Required for fast-twitch fiber fusion	Cytoplasm (zebrafish fast-twitch fibers)	Moore et al. (76)
Crk/Crk like	Dock1/Dock5 adaptor proteins, required for fast-twitch fiber fusion	Cytoplasm (zebrafish fast-twitch fibers)	Moore et al. (76)
Kirrel	Cell recognition/adhesion	Membrane (zebrafish fast muscle precursors)	Srinivas et al. (75)
Rac	Regulation of number and polarity of fusion events	Ubiquitous	Srinivas et al. (75)