Student Presenter(s): Arhum Ahmed
Faculty Mentor: Michael Hadjiargyrou
Department: Biological and Chemical Sciences
School/College: College of Arts and Sciences, Long Island

MUSTN1 or Mustang ( Musculoskeletal Temporally Activated Novel Gene) is a pan-musculoskeletal gene exclusively expressed in bone, cartilage, skeletal muscle, and tendon cells. Previous in vitro experiments showed that MUSTN1 downregulation leads to a decrease in myofusion and mRNA expression of myogenesis related marker genes. In this study, we examined the in vivo effects of MUSTN1 ablation in skeletal muscle development and function. The knockout (KO) mice were generated using the Cre-Lox system and were examined in weight, grip strength tests, and glucose tolerance tests at ages 1 to 6 months. The KO male mice had lower weight (p < 0.01), grip strength (p < 0.01), and blood glucose (p < 0.0001) at 2 months compared to the control, but these differences disappeared at 4 months. Female mice did not show any significant difference between genotypes at all ages. Our data presents an opportunity to add to the understanding of additional regulatory mechanisms of skeletal muscle development and how MUSTN1 can be related to skeletal muscle pathologies.