Vol. 2, Issue 3, Part A (2017)

Author(s): Amritha N, Dr. K Revathi and Dr. M Babu

Abstract: Muscle development is influenced by a number of environmental factors and in a range of species. Understanding growth and development of muscles is one of the most important goals in animal production and human medicine. The quail has been used as an animal model for the muscle growth and development because of its relatively rapid generation time, easy access to study embryonic muscle development and conservation of muscle developmental processes in mammals. Muscle growth and ultimate muscle mass are largely determined by both; initial number of muscle fibres and growth, size and length of individual muscle fibres during post-natal period. Thus, both number and size of muscle fibres are co related with growth rate and muscle mass. Muscle fibre formation (myogenesis) occurs only during early embryonic development when it is under the control of the MyoD gene family consisting of myogenin, MyoD1, myf-5 and myf – 6.