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Insulin-Like Growth Factor I (IGF-I) Receptor Overexpression Abolishes the IGF Requirement for Differentiation and Induces a Ligand-Dependent Transformed Phenotype in C2 Inducible Myoblasts¹

Laboratoire de Différenciation Cellulaire et Croissance, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (M.N., B.B., V.G., H.B.), 34060 Montpellier, France; and the Department of Molecular Biology, Max Planck Institut für Biochemie (J.S.), Martinsried, Germany

Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Dr. Henri Bernardi, Laboratoire de Differenciation Cellulaire et Croissance, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, place Viala, 34060 Montpellier Cedex 01, France. E-mail: bernardi{at}ensam.inra.fr

Insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) stimulate both proliferation and differentiation of myogenic cell lines, and these actions are mostly mediated through the type I IGF receptor (type I IGF-R). To further investigate the role of this receptor in phenotypic characteristics of C2 murine myoblasts, we overexpressed the human type I IGF-R in the inducible clone of C2 cells, which requires IGFs in the differentiation medium to undergo terminal differentiation.

Inducible myoblasts were transfected with either the eukaryotic expression vector pNTK or pNTK containing the human type I IGF-R complementary DNA, and we isolated two clones named Ind-Neo and Ind-R, respectively. Binding and autophosphorylation experiments indicate that Ind-R cells express about 10 times as much type I IGF-R compared with Ind-Neo control cells and that the transfected type I IGF-R is functional in Ind-R cells.

We show that overexpression of the human type I IGF-R makes inducible myoblasts able to differentiate spontaneously, as assessed by expression of the myogenic transcription factors MyoD and myogenin, detection of the muscle-specific protein troponin T, and myotube formation. Moreover, when exposed to IGF-I, Ind-R cells lose contact inhibition, grow in the presence of a low level of growth factors and form colonies in soft agar, which is characteristic of a ligand-dependent transformed phenotype.

It emerges from this study that 1) the type I IGF-R is strongly involved in the phenotypic differences between inducible and permissive cells with respect to the differentiation program; and 2) overexpression causes this receptor to act as a ligand-dependent transforming protein in muscle cells. We suggest that type I IGF-R abundance and level of activation may determine the efficiency of the autocrine mode of action of IGFs and discriminate their biological functions.

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