The proper functioning of tissues and organs depends on their ability to self-renew and repair. Some of the tissues, like epithelia, renew almost constantly while in the others this process is induced by injury or diseases. The stem or progenitor cells responsible for tissue homeostasis have been identified in many organs. Some of them, such as hematopoietic or intestinal epithelium stem cells, are multipotent and can differentiate into various cell types. Others are unipotent. The skeletal muscle tissue does not self-renew spontaneously, however, it presents unique ability to regenerate in response to the injury or disease. Its repair almost exclusively relies on unipotent satellite cells. However, multiple lines of evidence document that some progenitor cells present in the muscle can be supportive for skeletal muscle regeneration. Here, we summarize the current knowledge on the complicated landscape of stem and progenitor cells that exist in skeletal muscle and support its regeneration. We compare the cells from two model organisms, i.e., mouse and human, documenting their similarities and differences and indicating methods to test their ability to undergo myogenic differentiation.

组织和器官的正常功能取决于其自我更新和修复的能力。一些组织，如上皮细胞，几乎不断更新，而在其他组织中，此过程则是由损伤或疾病引起的。在许多器官中已经鉴定出负责组织稳态的干细胞或祖细胞。它们中的一些，例如造血干细胞或肠上皮干细胞，是多能的，可以分化成各种细胞类型。其他都是单能的。骨骼肌组织不会自发地自我更新，但是，它具有独特的再生能力，可以响应损伤或疾病。它的修复几乎完全依赖于单能卫星小区。但是，有许多证据表明，肌肉中存在的一些祖细胞可以支持骨骼肌的再生。这里，我们总结了关于骨骼肌中存在的干细胞和祖细胞的复杂情况的当前知识，并支持其再生。我们比较了两种模式生物的细胞即老鼠和人类，记录他们的异同并指出测试其经历成肌分化能力的方法。