Striated muscles - also known as skeletal and cardiac muscles - are fundamental metabolically active tissues. Muscle plasticity in response to normal functions and pathological conditions involves circulating hormones and the production and secretion of active factors into muscle cells, collectively called myokines and muscle-related hormones.

A coordinated link between activation of this tissue and several organs involving excitation-contraction coupling, metabolism, and muscle repair to continually adapt endocrine and paracrine muscle actions. Currently, it is known that skeletal myofibers and cardiac cells produce and release cytokines, myokines, and other active peptides. These molecules play crucial roles in the crosstalk between skeletal and cardiac muscle and other tissues, and, together with the synthesis and degradation controlled by muscle metabolites, they represent an essential mechanism to regulate local and whole-body homeostasis. A coordinated link for skeletal and cardiac muscle-related hormone production, secretion, action mechanisms, and their local and systemic functions has made the current study of endocrine and paracrine muscle actions to be considered a frontier of scientific knowledge and research worldwide.

This Special Issue aims to stimulate the impact of endocrine and paracrine muscle functions. We invite original research and review articles from leading and emerging scientists who study this field topically and with diverse expertise and interest. A wide array of topics and approaches to both skeletal and cardiac muscle during health and disease are covered that discuss significant observations in the field. Current advances or prospects are welcome.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Metabolic signaling and bioenergetics link in muscle-related hormones
• Transcriptional regulation and actions of muscle hormones
• Heart and skeletal muscle inflammation
• Myokine production and action mechanisms
• Role of skeletal muscle in aging-induced metabolic syndrome
• Exercise and myokine release
• Effect of anabolic hormones on myokine actions
• Skeletal muscle as a target for metabolic syndrome treatment
• Therapeutic potential for muscle wasting involving myokines intervention
• Metabolic myopathies and their impact on organism function