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

ABSTRACT: 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 myog

SUBMITTER: Webster MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4744135 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature