Revealing the transcriptional profile of fish muscle cells in vitro and in vivo: insights to improve fish muscle culture

Despite improved strategies, in vitro assays still show discrepancies with in vivo systems, especially for non-model organisms. In this sense, we characterized the transcriptional profile of pacus (Piaractus mesopotamicus) muscle cells in vitro and in vivo.

Processes related to proliferation, glycolytic metabolism, and extracellular matrix were enriched in vitro, while energy production, muscle contraction, and amino acid pro-cessing were enriched in vivo. Through qPCR, the genes fn1a (fibronectin 1a), hk1 (hexokinase 1) and ctnnb1 (catenin beta 1), respectively related to extracellular matrix, glycolytic metabo-lism, and cell proliferation and differentiation, were highly expressed in vitro.