Animals possess a wide variety of muscle types that support different kinds of movements. Different muscles have distinct locations, morphologies and contractile properties, raising the question of how muscle diversity is generated during development. Normal aging processes and muscle disorders differentially affect particular muscle types, thus understanding how muscles normally develop and are maintained provides insight into alterations in disease and senescence. As muscle structure and basic developmental mechanisms are highly conserved, many important insights into disease mechanisms in humans as well as into basic principles of muscle development have come from model organisms such as Drosophila, zebrafish and mouse. While transcriptional regulation has been characterized to play an important role in myogenesis, there is a growing recognition of the contributions of alternative splicing to myogenesis and the refinement of muscle function. Here we review our current understanding of muscle type specific alternative splicing, using examples of isoforms with distinct functions from both vertebrates and Drosophila. Future exploration of the vast potential of alternative splicing to fine-tune muscle development and function will likely uncover novel mechanisms of isoform-specific regulation and a more holistic understanding of muscle development, disease and aging.

动物拥有支持不同运动类型的多种肌肉。不同的肌肉具有不同的位置，形态和收缩特性，这引发了在发育过程中如何产生肌肉多样性的问题。正常的衰老过程和肌肉疾病会不同地影响特定的肌肉类型，因此了解肌肉的正常发育和维持方式可以洞悉疾病和衰老的变化。由于肌肉结构和基本发育机制受到高度保护，因此对人类疾病机制以及肌肉发育基本原理的许多重要见解都来自果蝇等模型生物，斑马鱼和老鼠。尽管转录调节在肌发生中起着重要作用，但人们逐渐认识到可变剪接对肌发生和肌肉功能细化的贡献。在这里，我们使用具有与脊椎动物和果蝇不同功能的同工型的实例，回顾我们目前对肌肉类型特异性剪接的理解。未来对选择性剪接的巨大潜力进行微调，以微调肌肉的发育和功能的未来可能会发现异构体特异性调节的新机制，以及对肌肉发育，疾病和衰老的更全面的了解。