PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Isabelle Hatfield
AU  - Innocence Harvey
AU  - Lawrence T. Reiter
AU  - Dave Bridges
TI  - The role of TORC1 in muscle development in Drosophila
AID  - 10.1101/010991
DP  - 2014 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 010991
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2014/11/02/010991.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2014/11/02/010991.full
AB  - Myogenesis is an important process during both development and muscle repair. Previous studies suggest that mTORC1 plays a role in the formation of mature muscle from immature muscle precursor cells. Here we show that gene expression for several myogenic transcription factors including Myf5, Myog and Mef2c but not MyoD decreases when C2C12 cells are treated with rapamycin, implying a role for mTORC1 pathway during muscle development. To investigate the possibility that mTORC1 can regulate muscle in vivo we ablated the essential mTORC1 subunit Raptor in Drosophila melanogaster and found that muscle-specific ablation of Raptor causes flies to be too weak to emerge from their pupal cases during eclosion. Furthermore, we found that there is a critical period post-eclosure when Raptor ablation causes lethality in flies. Together these results highlight an important new role for mTORC1 in late muscle development, integrity or function.