Fig. 6. A short-term application of sMyomerger^26-84 or LPC to Myomerger-deficient myoblasts promotes their complete fusion.

a Schematic showing myoblast fusion assay. Myomerger-deficient C2C12 labeled with either orange cell tracker or green cell tracker were co-plated in the DM. Cell fusion was observed as formation of yellow (shown) or red or green multinucleated cells. After 3 days of the differentiation, we applied sMyomerger^26-84 for 30 min (b, c) or LPC for 60 min (d, e). Then we fixed the cells and scored fusion as the ratio of nuclei in the cells with ≥2 nuclei to the total number of nuclei. b, d show the quantifications of the fusion extents observed after application of sMyomerger^26-84 (b) or LPC (d). N, the number of randomly selected fields of view examined over three independent cell preparations for each condition, is indicated to the left of the box associated with that data. Box-and-whisker plots show median (center line), mean (blue line), 25–75th percentiles (box), 10–90th percentiles (whiskers), and 5–95th percentiles (solid circles). P-values were calculated using a two-tailed unpaired t-test. c, e Representative images for the experiments in b and d taken for the control cells and for the cells treated with 1 or 20 μM sMyomerger^26-84 (c) or 100 or 300 μM LPC (e). c, e Arrows mark examples of fusion. Scale bar 50 μm.