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#myotwitter. Is Myod expendable for skeletal muscle? Seems like a silly question since Rudnicki published in 1992 the Myod KO mouse lived and had “normal” muscle. But it’s actually more complicated 1/
@skppowers and other labs showed that the Muscle’s ability to generate force was reduced and we showed EM filaments were not as regular. So Myod null muscle is not normal 2/
So now you come to the problem with unpublished negative data. My lab tried for several years to cross the Myod KO mouse (on Balbc) to the C57bl6 background. We did not pursue this lightly we spent resources on it. We got zero Myod KO mice. Not a few but 0. Important but 3/
Then in email exchange with Mike R he shared the same experience- can’t get viable Myod KO pups on C57bl6 background. So is there something on balbc that is permissive or something in Bl6 the is negative? Interesting but I am not going to pursue the genetics on this 4/
And Mike R has not. And without more data it is unpublishable. But I do think it is an important question. So #myotwitter I would value your collective wisdom on this 5/
So what if that first Myod KO mouse had been generated on Bl6 instead of Balbc? If Myod was absolutely necessary for muscle formation and pup survival - How much would that concept change how you/we view Myod now? End
