Bioengineered muscles have strengthened

Muscles "in vitro"

Sergey Syrov, XXII CENTURY, based on USC Stem Cell: USC researchers use gelatin instead of the gym to grow stronger muscles

Megan L. McCain and her colleagues at the University of Southern California have developed a way to grow large and strong muscle fibers. But not in order to simplify the life of bodybuilders. This is the development of a project on the cultivation "in vitro" of organs and tissues necessary for medical research.

The first authors of the work are Archana Bettadapur and Gio C. Suh, a report on the development of "muscles on a chip" was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Prolonged Culture of Aligned Skeletal Myotubes on Micromolded Gelatin Hydrogels).

During normal embryonic development, skeletal musculature is formed when myoblast cells fuse into muscle fibers, the so-called muscle tubules.

In past experiments, mouse muscle tubes fell off or peeled off from a plastic base with a protein coating after about a week and did not develop.

Now scientists have created a substrate of gelatin, a material derived from the protein of muscle tissue – collagen, and have achieved significant improvement in results. After three weeks, the mouse's muscle fibers were still attached to the gelatin "chip", and they were longer, wider and more developed than those that had been able to grow earlier.

Researchers suggest that human muscle fibers will feel just as good on a gelatin substrate. These new "muscles on a chip" can be used to study the normal process of human muscle development, its disorders and diseases of the muscular system, as well as provide a testing ground for new drugs.

 "Diseases and disorders of skeletal muscles – ranging from severe muscular dystrophy to a gradual decrease in muscle mass with aging – dramatically reduce the quality of life of millions of people," says McCain. "Creating an inexpensive and accessible platform for studying skeletal muscle in the laboratory, we hope, will allow us to study these processes in detail, which will open up new methods of helping these patients."

Portal "Eternal Youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  05.07.2016