Skeletal myotubes grown for three weeks on gelatin hydrogel. Credit: Archana Bettadapur, Gio Suh, Evelyn Wang, Holly Huber, Alyssa Viscio and Megan McCain
Muscles-on-a-chip could be used to study muscle development and disease, as well as provide a relevant testing ground for new potential drugs. During normal embryonic development, skeletal muscles form when myoblasts fuse to form muscle fibers, myotubes. In past experiments, mouse myotubes have detached or delaminated from protein-coated plastic scaffolds after approximately one week and failed to thrive.
In this experiment, the researchers fabricated a gel scaffold from gelatin, a derivative of the naturally occurring muscle protein collagen, and achieved much better results. After 3 weeks, many of the mouse myotubes were still adhering to these gelatin chips, and they were longer, wider and more developed as a result. The researchers anticipate that human myotubes would thrive equally well on gelatin chips.
“Disease and disorders involving skeletal muscle – ranging from severe muscular dystrophies to the gradual decrease in muscle mass with aging – dramatically reduce the quality of life for millions of people,” said McCain, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, and stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “By creating an inexpensive and accessible platform for studying skeletal muscle in the laboratory, we hope to enable research that will usher in new treatments for these patients.”
In their project, they will use the gelatin chips for studying amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which damages the intersections between motor nerve cells and muscle cells, called neuromuscular junctions (NMJs). McCain, Ichida and Dickman will use skin or blood cells from patients with ALS to generate and study NMJs on gelatin chips. https://stemcell.usc.edu/2016/06/30/usc-researchers-use-gelatin-instead-of-the-gym-to-grow-stronger-muscles/
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