ABSTRACT
Skeletal muscle development relies on complex regulatory mechanisms which must coordinate cell cycle withdrawal, cell alignment, and membrane fusion with the synthesis, organization, and innervation of a contractile apparatus. Cell adhesion through the integrins regulates many of the molecular events which underlie each of these processes by modulating a variety of intracellular signaling molecules. This chapter provides methods and discusses experimental examples which use primary quail myoblast differentiation as a model to study the roles of various integrin subunits and the signaling events which these proteins mediate. Integrins possess no intrinsic enzymatic activity but instead interact, either directly or indirectly, with a number of intracellular proteins to initiate signals which might modulate cell cycle withdrawal.
