Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Nov 1.
Published in final edited form as: Differentiation. 2009 Jun 27;78(4):195–204. doi: 10.1016/j.diff.2009.06.001

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

RA induction of α-myosin heavy chain (MyHC) promoter-driven Gaussia luciferase reporter activity in C2C12 cells. (A) Construction of the MyHC-GLuc reporter. A 5.5kb α-myosin heavy chain promoter-driven Gaussia luciferase reporter (MyHC-GLuc) is schematically shown. The promoter region also contains the first three exons (white boxes). (B) Specificity of MyHC-GLuc reporter. C2C12 cells were transfected with pMyHC-GLuc, vector control (blank), or β-catenin/Tcf4 reporter pTOP-Luc and cultured in 2% horse serum or 10% fetal bovine serum medium to induce spontaneous differentiation. Luciferase activity (mean ± SD) was determined at the indicated time points. (C) Dex induction of MyHC-GLuc activity in C2C12 cells. Cells were transfected with MyHC-GLuc reporter plasmid, and treated with DMSO (1%), Dex (1.0µM) or untreated. Relative Gaussia luciferase activity (mean ± SD) was assayed at the indicated time points. Differences between DMSO and Dex treated cells were statistically significant after day 5 (p < 0.001). Each assay condition was carried out in triplicate. (D) Dex induced morphological changes. C2C12 cells were treated with Dex (1.0µM) and cell morphological changes were recorded under a bright field microscope at days 3, 5, and 7. Elongated cells and/or potential cell fusions were indicated by arrows.