This bookdescribes the diverse roles that growth factors and cytokines play in skeletalmuscle. The extracellular environment has profound effects on the biology ofskeletal muscle. The soluble portion of this environment includes a rich milieuof growth factors and cytokines which have been shown to regulate virtually allfacets of the response of skeletal muscle to external stimuli, whether it beexercise induced metabolic shifts, remodeling in response to trauma or loadingof the ongoing pathology associated with neuromuscular disease. Thechapters included in this work illustrate growth factors that directly affectskeletal muscle cells and those which influence non-muscle cells thatcontribute to the biology of skeletal muscle as a whole tissue. The currentstate of the art, with the advent of systems biology, allows for thedelineation of signaling networks which are regulated by suites of growthfactors. This is in stark contrast to early more traditional studies, whichonly examined the effects of isolated growth factors on the activity ofskeletal muscle precursor cells in tissue culture.The workpresented in this volume ranges from reviewing and analyzing the roles ofindividual growth factors in detail, to the complex interplay of multiplesoluble factors in the control of muscle functional, and dysfunctional states.The material covered in this volume will particularly suit readers from a rangeof research fields spanning general muscle biology and physiology, and thoseworking on diseases and conditions affecting skeletal muscle both directly andindirectly.
