Fig. 1

Characterisation of primary porcine muscle cells. a Highly enriched myoblasts were isolated from 4 to 6 week old muscles (longissimus dorsi), as evidenced by nuclear detection of Pax3 and Pax7 (both antibodies from R&D Systems, 1:100 dilution). b Extensive discrete immunodetection of MyHC slow (Sigma, M8421, 1:4000 dilution) and fast (Sigma, M4276, 1:400 dilution) in myotubes at day 5 differentiation. c By contrast, myotube formation was typically low using standard media (in this case MEM with 10 % fetal bovine serum and 1 % penicillin-streptomycin (P/S) as proliferation medium, and MEM with 2 % horse serum and 1 % P/S as differentiation medium [12, 19]). Immunodetection of α-actin was confined to a limited number of myoblasts/myotubes over 12 days of differentiation. Day = days of differentiation. d Present protocol conferred comparably high levels of myotube formation over 7 passages (P) of porcine myoblasts. Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained myotubes at day 3 differentiation from P1, P5 and P7