Miniaturized skeletal muscle tissue fabrication for measuring contractile activity

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Regenerative Medicine
• Drug Discovery

Background:

• Skeletal muscle contractile function is vital; muscular diseases significantly impair life quality.
• Current methods for engineering contractile muscle tissue are cell-intensive and complex.
• Developing efficient therapeutic agents for muscular dystrophy and related diseases is critical.

Purpose of the Study:

• To simplify the production of contractile skeletal muscle tissues for drug screening.
• To develop a miniature device for high-throughput screening of drug effects on muscle contraction.
• To evaluate the efficacy of a novel tissue engineering approach using different cell sources.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a miniature polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) device for skeletal muscle tissue engineering.
• Culturing and differentiation of mouse C2C12 myoblasts and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) into skeletal muscle tissues.
• Assessment of contractile force generation and drug responses using the developed muscle device system.

Main Results:

• Successfully produced contracting skeletal muscle tissues using a simplified, miniaturized device.
• Demonstrated the system's capability to evaluate the effects of model drugs on muscle contractile force.
• Validated the utility of the device with both C2C12 myoblasts and hiPSC-derived muscle cells.

Conclusions:

• The miniature muscle device offers a simplified and efficient platform for skeletal muscle tissue engineering.
• This system is suitable for high-throughput drug screening, potentially accelerating the development of treatments for muscle diseases.
• The developed method represents a valuable advancement in muscle tissue engineering for pharmaceutical applications.