Table 1.

Comparison of murine and human satellite cells

Category	Mouse	Human
Identifiable on muscle sections?	Yes By EM [6] By IHC; markers include Pax7 [21] and M-cadherin [22]	Yes By EM [7] By IHC; markers include Pax7 and CD56 [24]
Isolation of myofiber with associated satellite cells?	Yes [27]	Yes [26]
Identify live cells in culture?a	Yes [17,33-36]	Yes [61,62]
Intramuscular abundance	Less than 5% [6]	about 2% [9]; about 4% [7,8]
Gene signatures of satellite cells?a	Yes [63,64]	Yes [65]
Contribution to muscle growth following transplantation?	Yes [18,19,66]	?
Formation of functional satellite cells in vivo following transplantation?	Yes [18,19,66]	?
Satisfy criteria for being bona fide stem cells?	Yes [3,17]	?

^aAlthough the authors of all the cited papers refer to their isolated cells as ‘satellite cells’, this designation is often not the same as the definition used here. Please refer to the main text for a detailed discussion. EM, electron microscopy; IHC, immunohistochemistry.