Intravital Imaging Reveals Ghost Fibers as Architectural Units Guiding Myogenic Progenitors during Regeneration

How resident stem cells and their immediate progenitors rebuild tissues of pre-injury organization and size for proportional regeneration is not well understood. Using 3D, time-lapse intravital imaging for direct visualization of the muscle regeneration process in live mice, we report that extracellular matrix remnants from injured skeletal muscle fibers, "ghost fibers," govern muscle stem/progenitor cell behaviors during proportional regeneration. Stem cells were immobile and quiescent without injury whereas their activated progenitors migrated and divided after injury. Unexpectedly, divisions and migration were primarily bi-directionally oriented along the ghost fiber longitudinal axis, allowing for spreading of progenitors throughout ghost fibers. Re-orienting ghost fibers impacted myogenic progenitors' migratory paths and division planes, causing disorganization of regenerated muscle fibers. We conclude that ghost fibers are autonomous, architectural units necessary for proportional regeneration after tissue injury. This finding reinforces the need to fabricate bioengineered matrices that mimic living tissue matrices for tissue regeneration therapy.