Muscle regulatory factors (MRFs) play a major role in muscle growth and development. Thus, they are considered as candidate genes for meat production traits in pigs. These basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) and paired box transcription factors together with Bone morphogenetic proteins, regulate myogenesis: they initiate the formation of muscle fibers and regulate the transcription of muscle specific genes. The objective of this study was to investigate the mRNA abundance of transcription factor (TF) genes (MYOD, MYF5, MYOG, PAX3, PAX7, BMP2 and BMP4) in the adult skeletal muscle (longissimus dorsi) of divergent Duroc (high meat fat ratio) and Pietrain (low meat fat ratio) pig breeds. For this purpose, purebred Duroc and Pietrain animals (for each breed n = 5) were used for mRNA expression study. Highest gene expression was observed for MYOG, followed by BMP2. The lowest gene expression was observed for PAX3. Moreover, we statistically investigated differences in the expression profiles of these genes between the Duroc and Pietrain breeds. Among seven genes MYF5 and PAX3 showed different expression (P<0.01) between Duroc and Pietrain breeds. Duroc showed higher MYF5 and PAX3 mRNA abundance compared to the Pietrain breed. Although PAX3 gene was the lowest expressed, results suggest that Duroc breed may have more skeletal muscle regeneration potential compared to Pietrain breed.