Osteogenesis within muscle: Craniofacial vs. limb muscle cells

Ectopic bone formation in skeletal muscle has been observed as a result of pathological and experimental conditions. These observations have led researchers to investigate the existence of osteoprogenitor cells within skeletal muscles. Most of the work in this field has described cells isolated from non-craniofacial muscle. However, the involvement of neural crest cells (NCC) in the development of craniofacial skeletal muscles (CSkM; masseter) may have an effect on the multipotentiality of the cells isolated from these muscles. It is therefore hypothesized that CSkM contains a more highly active multipotential cell population than non-craniofacial muscles. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate and compare the osteogenic differentiation abilities of cells isolated from craniofacial and limb muscles