Biology of Hippo signaling pathway: Skeletal muscle development and beyond1

Abstract

Global demand for farm animals and their meat products, pork, chicken and other livestock meat, is steadily increasing. With the ongoing life science research and the rapid development of biotechnology, it is a great opportunity to develop advanced molecular breeding markers to efficiently improve animal meat production traits. Hippo is an important study subject because of its crucial role in the regulation of organ size. In recent years, with the increase of research on Hippo signaling pathway, the integrative application of multi-omics technologies such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics can help promote the in-depth involvement of Hippo signaling pathway in skeletal muscle development research. The Hippo signaling pathway plays a key role in many biological events, including cell division, cell migration, cell proliferation, cell differentiation, cell apoptosis, as well as cell adhesion, cell polarity, homeostasis, maintenance of the face of mechanical overload, etc. Its influence on the development of skeletal muscle has important research value for enhancing the efficiency of animal husbandry production. In this study, we traced the origin of the Hippo pathway, comprehensively sorted out all the functional factors found in the pathway, deeply analyzed the molecular mechanism of its function, and classified it from a novel perspective based on its main functional domain and mode of action. Our aim is to systematically explore its regulatory role throughout skeletal muscle development. We specifically focus on the Hippo signaling pathway in embryonic stem cell development, muscle satellite cell fate determination, myogenesis, skeletal muscle meat production and organ size regulation, muscle hypertrophy and atrophy, muscle fiber formation and its transformation between different types, and cardiomyocytes. The roles in proliferation and regeneration are methodically summarized and analyzed comprehensively. The summary and prospect of the Hippo signaling pathway within this article will provide ideas for further improving meat production and muscle deposition and developing new molecular breeding technologies for livestock and poultry, which will be helpful for the development of animal molecular breeding.