Darren J. Player

Modelling in vivo skeletal muscle ageing in vitro using three-dimensional bioengineered constructs

Degeneration of skeletal muscle (SkM) with age (sarcopenia) is a major contributor to functional decline, morbidity and mortality. Methodological implications often make it difficult to embark on interventions in already frail and diseased elderly individuals. Using in vitro three‐dimensional (3D) bioengineered skeletal muscle constructs that model aged phenotypes and incorporate a representative extracellular matrix (collagen), are under tension, and display morphological and transcript expression of mature skeletal muscle may more accurately characterize the SkM niche. Furthermore, an in vitro model would provide greater experimental manipulation with regard to gene, pharmacological and exercise (mechanical stretch/electrical stimulation) therapies and thus strategies for combating muscle wasting with age. The present study utilized multiple population‐doubled (MPD) murine myoblasts compared with parental controls (CON), previously shown to have an aged phenotype in monolayer cultures ( Sharples et al., 2011 ), seeded into 3D type I collagen matrices under uniaxial tension. 3D bioengineered constructs incorporating MPD cells had reduced myotube size and diameter vs. CON constructs. MPD constructs were characterized by reduced peak force development over 24 h after cell seeding, reduced transcript expression of remodelling matrix metalloproteinases, MMP2 and MMP9, with reduced differentiation/hypertrophic potential shown by reduced IGF‐I, IGF‐IR, IGF‐IEa, MGF mRNA. Increased IGFBP2 and myostatin in MPD vs. CON constructs also suggested impaired differentiation/reduced regenerative potential. Overall, 3D bioengineered skeletal muscle constructs represent an in vitro model of the in vivo cell niche with MPD constructs displaying similar characteristics to ageing/atrophied muscle in vivo, thus potentially providing a future test bed for therapeutic interventions to contest muscle degeneration with age.

Defining the Balance between Regeneration and Pathological Ossification in Skeletal Muscle Following Traumatic Injury

Heterotopic ossification (HO) is characterized by the formation of bone at atypical sites. This type of ectopic bone formation is most prominent in skeletal muscle, most frequently resulting as a consequence of physical trauma and associated with aberrant tissue regeneration. The condition is debilitating, reducing a patients range of motion and potentially causing severe pathologies resulting from nerve and vascular compression. Despite efforts to understand the pathological processes governing HO, there remains a lack of consensus regarding the micro-environmental conditions conducive to its formation, and attempting to define the balance between muscle regeneration and pathological ossification remains complex. The development of HO is thought to be related to a complex interplay between factors released both locally and systemically in response to trauma. It develops as skeletal muscle undergoes significant repair and regeneration, and is likely to result from the misdirected differentiation of endogenous or systemically derived progenitors in response to biochemical and/or environmental cues. The process can be sequentially delineated by the presence of inflammation, tissue breakdown, adipogenesis, hypoxia, neo-vasculogenesis, chondrogenesis and ossification. However, exactly how each of these stages contributes to the formation of HO is at present not well understood. Our previous review examined the cellular contribution to HO. Therefore, the principal aim of this review will be to comprehensively outline changes in the local tissue micro-environment following trauma, and identify how these changes can alter the balance between skeletal muscle regeneration and ectopic ossification. An understanding of the mechanisms governing this condition is required for the development and advancement of HO prophylaxis and treatment, and may even hold the key to unlocking novel methods for engineering hard tissues.

Creating Interactions between Tissue-Engineered Skeletal Muscle and the Peripheral Nervous System

Effective models of mammalian tissues must allow and encourage physiologically (mimetic) correct interactions between co-cultured cell types in order to produce culture microenvironments as similar as possible to those that would normally occur in vivo. In the case of skeletal muscle, the development of such a culture model, integrating multiple relevant cell types within a biomimetic scaffold, would be of significant benefit for investigations into the development, functional performance, and pathophysiology of skeletal muscle tissue. Although some work has been published regarding the behaviour of in vitro muscle models co-cultured with organotypic slices of CNS tissue or with stem cell-derived neurospheres, little investigation has so far been made regarding the potential to maintain isolated motor neurons within a 3D biomimetic skeletal muscle culture platform. Here, we review the current state of the art for engineering neuromuscular contacts in vitro and provide original data detailing the development of a 3D collagen-based model for the co-culture of primary muscle cells and motor neurons. The devised culture system promotes increased myoblast differentiation, forming arrays of parallel, aligned myotubes on which areas of nerve-muscle contact can be detected by immunostaining for pre- and post-synaptic proteins. Quantitative RT-PCR results indicate that motor neuron presence has a positive effect on myotube maturation, suggesting neural incorporation influences muscle development and maturation in vitro. The importance of this work is discussed in relation to other published neuromuscular co-culture platforms along with possible future directions for the field.

Leucine elicits myotube hypertrophy and enhances maximal contractile force in tissue engineered skeletal muscle in vitro

The amino acid leucine is thought to be important for skeletal muscle growth by virtue of its ability to acutely activate mTORC1 and enhance muscle protein synthesis, yet little data exist regarding its impact on skeletal muscle size and its ability to produce force. We utilized a tissue engineering approach in order to test whether supplementing culture medium with leucine could enhance mTORC1 signaling, myotube growth, and muscle function. Phosphorylation of the mTORC1 target proteins 4EBP‐1 and rpS6 and myotube hypertrophy appeared to occur in a dose dependent manner, with 5 and 20 mM of leucine inducing similar effects, which were greater than those seen with 1 mM. Maximal contractile force was also elevated with leucine supplementation; however, although this did not appear to be enhanced with increasing leucine doses, this effect was completely ablated by co‐incubation with the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin, showing that the augmented force production in the presence of leucine was mTOR sensitive. Finally, by using electrical stimulation to induce chronic (24 hr) contraction of engineered skeletal muscle constructs, we were able to show that the effects of leucine and muscle contraction are additive, since the two stimuli had cumulative effects on maximal contractile force production. These results extend our current knowledge of the efficacy of leucine as an anabolic nutritional aid showing for the first time that leucine supplementation may augment skeletal muscle functional capacity, and furthermore validates the use of engineered skeletal muscle for highly‐controlled investigations into nutritional regulation of muscle physiology.

Hypoxia impairs muscle function and reduces myotube size in tissue engineered skeletal muscle

Contemporary tissue engineered skeletal muscle models display a high degree of physiological accuracy compared with native tissue, and therefore may be excellent platforms to understand how various pathologies affect skeletal muscle. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a lung disease which causes tissue hypoxia and is characterized by muscle fiber atrophy and impaired muscle function. In the present study we exposed engineered skeletal muscle to varying levels of oxygen (O2; 21–1%) for 24 h in order to see if a COPD like muscle phenotype could be recreated in vitro, and if so, at what degree of hypoxia this occurred. Maximal contractile force was attenuated in hypoxia compared to 21% O2; with culture at 5% and 1% O2 causing the most pronounced effects with 62% and 56% decrements in force, respectively. Furthermore at these levels of O2, myotubes within the engineered muscles displayed significant atrophy which was not seen at higher O2 levels. At the molecular level we observed increases in mRNA expression of MuRF‐1 only at 1% O2 whereas MAFbx expression was elevated at 10%, 5%, and 1% O2. In addition, p70S6 kinase phosphorylation (a downstream effector of mTORC1) was reduced when engineered muscle was cultured at 1% O2, with no significant changes seen above this O2 level. Overall, these data suggest that engineered muscle exposed to O2 levels of ≤5% adapts in a manner similar to that seen in COPD patients, and thus may provide a novel model for further understanding muscle wasting associated with tissue hypoxia. J. Cell. Biochem. 118: 2599–2605, 2017.

The acute angiogenic signalling response to low-load resistance exercise with blood flow restriction.

Abstract This study investigated protein kinase activation and gene expression of angiogenic factors in response to low-load resistance exercise with or without blood flow restriction (BFR). In a repeated measures cross-over design, six males performed four sets of bilateral knee extension exercise at 20% 1RM (reps per set = 30:15:15:continued to fatigue) with BFR (110 mmHg) and without (CON). Muscle biopsies were obtained from the vastus lateralis before, 2 and 4 h post-exercise. mRNA expression was determined using real-time RT–PCR. Protein phosphorylation/expression was determined using Western blot. p38MAPK phosphorylation was greater (p = 0.05) at 2 h following BFR (1.3 ± 0.8) compared to CON (0.4 ± 0.3). AMPK phosphorylation remained unchanged. PGC-1α mRNA expression increased at 2 h (5.9 ± 1.3 vs. 2.1 ± 0.8; p = 0.03) and 4 h (3.2 ± 0.8 vs. 1.5 ± 0.4; p = 0.03) following BFR exercise with no change in CON. PGC-1α protein expression did not change following either exercise. BFR exercise enhanced mRNA expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) at 2 h (5.2 ± 2.8 vs 1.7 ± 1.1; p = .02) and 4 h (6.8 ± 4.9 vs. 2.5 ± 2.7; p = .01) compared to CON. mRNA expression of VEGF-R2 and hypoxia-inducible factor 1α increased following BFR exercise but only eNOS were enhanced relative to CON. Matrix metalloproteinase-9 mRNA expression was not altered in response to either exercise. Acute low-load resistance exercise with BFR provides a targeted angiogenic response potentially mediated through enhanced ischaemic and shear stress stimuli.

Skeletal Muscle Tissue Engineering

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of skeletal muscle and describe some of the methods used in our laboratories and others to engineer skeletal muscle tissue, highlighting specific benefits of each model and their utility both for transplantation, as applied to the craniofacial region, and in furthering biological understanding of skeletal muscle plasticity in health and disease.

The effect of chronic high insulin exposure upon metabolic and myogenic markers in C2C12 skeletal muscle cells and myotubes.

Skeletal muscle is an insulin sensitive tissue and accounts for approximately 80% of post‐prandial glucose disposal. This study describes the effects of insulin, delivered for 72 h, to skeletal muscle myoblasts during differentiation or to skeletal muscle myotubes. After chronic treatment, cultures were acutely stimulated with insulin and analyzed for total and phosphorylated Akt (Ser473), mRNA expression of metabolic and myogenic markers and insulin‐stimulated glucose uptake. Skeletal muscle cells differentiated in the presence of insulin chronically, reduced acute insulin stimulated phosphorylation of Akt Ser473. In addition, there was a reduction in mRNA expression of Hexokinase II (HKII), GLUT4 and PGC‐1α. Insulin‐stimulated glucose uptake was attenuated when cells were differentiated in the presence of insulin. In contrast, myotubes exposed to chronic insulin showed no alterations in phosphorylation of Akt Ser473. Both HKII and GLUT4 mRNA expression were reduced by chronic exposure to insulin; while PGC‐1α was not different between culture conditions and was increased by acute insulin stimulation. These data suggest that there are differential responses in insulin signalling, transcription, and glucose uptake of skeletal muscle cells when cultured in either the presence of insulin during differentiation or in myotube cultures.

Feasibility and biocompatibility of 3D printed photo-polymerised and laser sintered polymers for neuronal, myogenic and hepatic cell types

The integration of additive manufacturing (AM) technology within biological systems holds significant potential, specifically when refining the methods utilized for the creation of in vitro models. Therefore, examination of cellular interaction with the physical/physicochemical properties of 3D-printed polymers is critically important. In this work, skeletal muscle (C2 C12 ), neuronal (SH-SY5Y) and hepatic (HepG2) cell lines are utilized to ascertain critical evidence of cellular behavior in response to 3D-printed candidate polymers: Clear-FL (stereolithography, SL), PA-12 (laser sintering, LS), and VeroClear (PolyJet). This research outlines initial critical evidence for a framework of polymer/AM process selection when 3D printing biologically receptive scaffolds, derived from industry standard, commercially available AM instrumentation. C2 C12 , SH-SY5Y, and HepG2 cells favor LS polymer PA-12 for applications in which cellular adherence is necessitated. However, cell type specific responses are evident when cultured in the chemical leachate of photopolymers (Clear-FL and VeroClear). With the increasing prevalence of 3D-printed biointerfaces, the development of rigorous cell type specific biocompatibility data is imperative. Supplementing the currently limited database of functional 3D-printed biomaterials affords the opportunity for experiment-specific AM process and polymer selection, dependent on biological application and intricacy of design features required.

An Assessment of Myotube Morphology, Matrix Deformation, and Myogenic mRNA Expression in Custom-Built and Commercially Available Engineered Muscle Chamber Configurations

There are several three-dimensional (3D) skeletal muscle (SkM) tissue engineered models reported in the literature. 3D SkM tissue engineering (TE) aims to recapitulate the structure and function of native (in vivo) tissue, within an in vitro environment. This requires the differentiation of myoblasts into aligned multinucleated myotubes surrounded by a biologically representative extracellular matrix (ECM). In the present work, a new commercially available 3D SkM TE culture chamber manufactured from polyether ether ketone (PEEK) that facilitates suitable development of these myotubes is presented. To assess the outcomes of the myotubes within these constructs, morphological, gene expression, and ECM remodeling parameters were compared against a previously published custom-built model. No significant differences were observed in the morphological and gene expression measures between the newly introduced and the established construct configuration, suggesting biological reproducibility irrespective of manufacturing process. However, TE SkM fabricated using the commercially available PEEK chambers displayed reduced variability in both construct attachment and matrix deformation, likely due to increased reproducibility within the manufacturing process. The mechanical differences between systems may also have contributed to such differences, however, investigation of these variables was beyond the scope of the investigation. Though more expensive than the custom-built models, these PEEK chambers are also suitable for multiple use after autoclaving. As such this would support its use over the previously published handmade culture chamber system, particularly when seeking to develop higher-throughput systems or when experimental cost is not a factor.