Development of a cell self-assembled 3-dimensional in vitro skeletal muscle tissue model

Skeletal muscle diseases such as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy currently lack effective clinical treatments. Current research is focused on the development of in vitro model systems that mimic native muscle that can be used as a tool for high-throughput drug screening and diagnostics. Unfortunately, the current models fail to accurately mimic the morphological structure and functionality of native muscle. Our lab utilized a cell-seeding platform creating anchored skeletal muscle mimetic microtissues using nonadhesive micromolds that generate tissues containing native levels of cell density and viability. These tissues begin to express sarcomeric myosin during maturation but routinely fail as myosin production increases (~8-10 days postseeding). Future work includes optimizing culture conditions to further increase ECM and contractile protein production to near native levels along with incorporating mechanical conditioning using a custom-designed stimulation system to further strengthen and mature the tissue constructs.