This image shows mouse muscle cells seen under a microscope. The cells have fused to form myotubes which have many nuclei (stained blue). The cells produced from mouse skeletal muscle stem cells with a harmless virus that made them glow green. The green color remained when the stem cells fused into myotubes. Some myotubes are stained red for a protein involved in muscle contraction (myosin heavy chain), a characteristic of mature muscle fibers. Researchers should use the same viral delivery system to genetically modify cells and assess how altering cell fusion impairs myotube growth.

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Photo credit: © NIH / IMAGE POINT FR / BSIP / Alamy / Afripics
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