Dear Editor,

During skeletal myogenesis, the transcription factor MyoD promotes differentiation in myoblasts by its ability to arrest the cell cycle and activate muscle-specific transcription.1, 2 Recently, we showed that the cdk9/cyclin T2a complex plays an essential role in the MyoD-dependent activation of the myogenic program, describing a distinction with the cdk1 and cdk2 complexes, which are functionally downregulated during myotube formation and inhibit muscle-specific transcription when overexpressed.3 The role of cdk9 in modulating promoter-restricted transcription appears to be dependent on the sequence-specific factor recruiting the kinase, and on cdk9's ability to associate with different regulatory subunits, such as cyclin T1 and cyclin T2.4

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