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When muscle cells undergo insult or injury, these cells are released from beneath the basal lamina. While normally in a post-mitotic state, they re-enter the cell cycle and clone themselves. These clones aggregate, again become post-mitotic, and form a myotube. This myotube differentiates into normal, complex muscle tissue, thus repairing the injured site.

Research is currently underway to investigate whether satellite cells can differentiate into viable cardiac muscle cells. Normal cardiac cells are unable to regenerate, which makes the cardiac muscle death of myocardial infarctions irreversible.