Quantifying functional contraction of skeletal muscle is essential to assess the outcome of therapies in neuromuscular diseases. Three-dimensional muscle “organ-on-chip” models imitate muscle function but usually require a large amount of biological material, which can rarely be obtained from biopsies of patients with neuromuscular diseases. The miniaturised myotube technology used here requires much less tissue material than previously used systems.
A team of scientists including researchers from the Institute of Myology* has developed a miniaturised three-dimensional myotube culture chip which can monitor contraction at a single cell level.
The authors modelled LMNA-related congenital muscular dystrophy: they successfully created diseased 3D myotubes with reduced contraction. Myotubes derived from primary human myoblasts exhibiting spontaneous contractions generated high culture yields in strictly controlled microenvironments.
Miniaturised myotube technology can be used to study contraction and evaluate how neuromuscular diseases affect muscle organisation and force generation. It is also expected to significantly improve drug screening performance.
* More about the Signaling Pathways & Striated Muscles team’s works and the Cell and Molecular Orchestration in Muscle Regeneration, Ageing and Diseases team from the Institute’s Myology Centre for Research.
