Three studies were conducted to achieve the following respective objectives: 1) to determine the cellular mechanism by which growth hormone (GH) stimulates skeletal muscle growth; 2) to identify the signaling pathways that mediate the different effects of insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) on skeletal muscle growth; and 3) to determine the role of a functionally unknown gene named SH3 and cysteine rich domain 3 (STAC3) in myogenesis. In the first study, the myogenic precursor cells, satellite cells, were isolated from cattle and allowed to proliferate as myoblasts or induced to fuse into myotubes in culture. GH increased protein synthesis without affecting protein degradation in myotubes; GH had no effect on proliferation of myoblasts; GH had no effect on IGF-I mRNA expression in either myoblasts or myotubes. These data suggest that GH stimulates skeletal muscle growth in cattle in part through stimulation of protein synthesis and that this stimulation is not mediated through increased IGF-I mRNA expression in the muscle. In the second study, the signaling pathways mediating the effects of IGF-I on proliferation of bovine myoblasts and protein synthesis and degradation in bovine myotubes were identified by adding to the culture medium rapamycin, LY294002, and PD98059, which are specific inhibitors of the signaling molecules mTOR, AKT, and ERK, respectively. The effectiveness of these inhibitors was confirmed by Western blotting. Proliferation of bovine myoblasts was stimulated by IGF-I, and this stimulation was partially blocked by PD98059 and completely blocked by rapamycin or LY294002. Protein degradation in myotubes was inhibited by IGF-I and this inhibition was completely relieved by LY294002, but not by rapamycin or PD98059. Protein synthesis in myotubes was increased by IGF-I, and this increase was completely blocked by rapamycin, LY294002, or PD98059. These data demonstrate that IGF-I stimulates proliferation of bovine myoblasts and protein synthesis in bovine myotubes through both the PI3K/AKT and the MAPK signaling pathways and that IGF-I inhibits protein degradation in bovine myotubes through the PI3K/AKT pathway only. In the third study, the potential roles of STAC3 in myoblast proliferation, differentiation, and fusion were investigated. Overexpression of STAC3 inhibited differentiation of C2C12 cells (a murine myoblast cell line) and fusion of these cells into myotubes, whereas knockdown of STAC3 had the opposite effects. Either STAC3 overexpression or STAC3 knockdown had no effect on proliferation of C2C12 cells. Myoblasts from STAC3-deficient mouse embryos had a greater ability to fuse into myotubes than control myoblasts; the former cells also expressed more mRNAs for the myogenic regulators MyoD and myogenin and the adult myosin heavy chain protein MyHC1 than the latter. These results suggest that STAC3 inhibits myoblast differentiation and fusion.