Micropatterning C2C12 myotubes for orderly recording of intracellular calcium transients

Reconstruction of skeletal muscle myotubes in vitro using myogenic cell lines have been widely carried out to study functional properties and disease-related biological changes of myotubes, such as intracellular calcium dynamics. However, the analysis of biological signals in isolated single myotubes or interactions among several myotubes is quite difficult problem because of the randomness in size, morphology and orientation of differentiated myotubes cultured on a conventional tissue culture dish. In the present study, we attempted to form uniform-size myotubes and detect intracellular calcium dynamics from the fabricated myotubes. We modified surfaces of culture dishes using a poly(-dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) stamp and a 2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) polymer solution to form line patterns for myotube formation. We could form uniform-size and -orientation C2C12 myotubes and detect intracellular calcium dynamics from it. This simple method would be a useful for studying properties in myotubes with specific sizes and morphologies.