Electrical stimulation of biofidelic engineered muscle enhances myotube size, force, fatigue resistance, and induces a fast-to-slow-phenotype shift.

ABSTRACT: Therapeutic development for skeletal muscle diseases is challenged by a lack of ex vivo models that recapitulate human muscle physiology. Here, we engineered 3D human skeletal muscle tissue in the Biowire II platform that could be maintained and electrically stimulated long-term. Increasing differentiation time enhanced myotube formation, modulated myogenic gene expression, and increased twitch and tetanic forces. When we mimicked exercise training by applying chronic electrical stimulation, the "exercised" skeletal muscle tissues showed increased myotube size and a contractility profile, fatigue resistance, and gene expression changes comparable to in vivo models of exercise training. Additionally, tissues also responded with expected physiological changes to known pharmacological treatme

SUBMITTER: Pallotta I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11464147 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature