E-cadherin cytoplasmic domain inhibits cell surface localization of endogenous cadherins and fusion of C2C12 myoblasts

Myoblast fusion is a highly regulated process that is essential for skeletal muscle formation during muscle development and regeneration in mammals. Much remains to be elucidated about the molecular mechanism of myoblast fusion although cadherins, which are Ca(2+)-dependent cell–cell adhesion molecules, are thought to play a critical role in this process. Mouse myoblasts lacking either N-cadherin or M-cadherin can still fuse to form myotubes, indicating that they have no specific function in this process and may be functionally replaced by either M-cadherin or N-cadherin, respectively. In this study, we show that expressing the E-cadherin cytoplasmic domain ectopically in C2C12 myoblasts inhibits cell surface localization of endogenous M-cadherin and N-cadherin, as well as cell–cell fusion. This domain, however, does not inhibit myoblast differentiation according to microarray-based gene expression analysis. In contrast, expressing a dominant-negative β-catenin mutant ectopically, which suppresses Wnt/β-catenin signaling, did not inhibit cell–cell fusion. Therefore, the E-cadherin cytoplasmic domain inhibits cell–cell fusion by inhibiting cell surface localization of endogenous cadherins and not by inhibiting Wnt/β-catenin signaling.