Unconventional players on the striated muscle field: MicroRNAs, signaling pathways and epigenetic regulators

Striated muscle regeneration holds an intrinsic complexity governed by many orchestrated events. When the fine balance of regulatory machineries is under strain, the homeostatic conditions are lost and degeneration starts to occur. This is the case for inherited and acquired diseases of both cardiac and skeletal muscles. A wide range of factors are currently under scrutiny for better understanding the details underlying de-/re-generation processes, of both genetic and non-genetic nature. This review focuses on three classes of non-genetic factors regulating striated muscle regeneration, i.e. microRNAs, signaling pathways and epigenetic regulators.