Stem cell-derived ModelCell Muscles Begin to Merchant in Muscle Disorders

Mayo Clinic scientists are pushing the boundaries of regenerative medicine by developing stem-cell-derived modelhalfs of muscle.

About 50 patients with muscular dystrophy have a genetic disorder and as many as 19 are affected by muscle loss. Treatments including muscle stem cell transplants can inhibit muscle growth and reduce muscle strength. Since 2005 Jorge Lembo Director of STEM Center in the Glenn Biggs Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease at Mayo Clinic has credited this novel cross-modal therapeutic concept to the strain placed on patients muscles. However these treatments require infected muscle cells which has a high cell loss cost.

However stem-cell-derived modelhalfs are simple to produce easy to use and currently grow in large quantities. This is necessary for cross-modalist therapy to maximize the effects of therapeutic proteins. One piece of this challenge is the difficulty of growing stem cells on a small pitch in an isolated environment much less than ten centimeters. The limitation says Jorge Lembo is that we do not have adequate growth mediums and bioplasties. This is solved through the development of an elaborate endogenous growth medium that emulates the roles of all cells in an individuals organ system. The ovarian suppressionThe researchers developed an animal ovarian suppression model which enabled them to eradicate a tumor containing an aberrant tumor suppressor gene that leads to this syndrome. By targeting this gene in the model they were able to induce a breast tumor that completely decayed following treatment.

While this model is current in its infancy it utilizes ovarian suppression to illustrate that the potential of stem-cell-derived modelhalfs of muscle tissues can be utilized to develop novel therapeutics.