Molecular mechanisms that generate muscle cell type diversity.

The general aim of this proposal is to exploit the advantages of the zebrafish system and our access to theembryology of Australian shark species to generate an understanding of the basis for muscle fibre diersity and evolution. The significance of this research is that while the fundamental genetic basis of hw to make an individual muscle cell from a nascent myoblast is beginning to be unravelled in some detail there is far less knowledge on how individual muscle cells generate mature muscle types and patterns. The outcome of this research will be to generate a complex molecular understanding of the basis of muscle patterning in the simple paradigm of the zebrafish yotome that could be applied across the vertebrate phylogeny.