Repair of traumatic skeletal muscle injury with bone-marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells seeded on extracellular matrix.
Skeletal muscle injury resulting in tissue loss poses unique challenges for surgical repair. Despite the regenerative potential of skeletal muscle, if a significant amount of tissue is lost, skeletal myofibers will not grow to fill the injured area completely. Prior work in our lab has shown the potential to fill the void with an extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffold, resulting in restoration of morphology, but not functional recovery. To improve the functional outcome of the injured muscle, a muscle-derived ECM was implanted into a 1 x 1 cm(2), full-thickness defect in the lateral gastrocnemius (LGAS) of Lewis rats. Seven days later, bone-marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were injected directly into the implanted ECM. Partial functional recovery occurred over the course of 42 days when the LGAS was repaired with an MSC-seeded ECM producing 85.4 +/- 3.6% of the contralateral LGAS. This was significantly higher than earlier recovery time points (p < 0.05). The specific tension returned to 94 +/- 9% of the contralateral limb. The implanted MSC-seeded ECM had more blood vessels and regenerating skeletal myofibers than the ECM without cells (p < 0.05). The data suggest that the repair of a skeletal muscle defect injury by the implantation of a muscle-derived ECM seeded with MSCs can improve functional recovery after 42 days.
Merritt
Edward K
EK
Department of Kinesiology, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712, USA.
Cannon
Megan V
MV
Hammers
David W
DW
Le
Long N
LN
Gokhale
Rohit
R
Sarathy
Apurva
A
Song
Tae J
TJ
Tierney
Matthew T
MT
Suggs
Laura J
LJ
Walters
Thomas J
TJ
Farrar
Roger P
RP
D000818:Animals; D001854:Bone Marrow Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D003893:Desmin / Q000378:metabolism; D005109:Extracellular Matrix / Q000737:chemistry*; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D045164:Mesenchymal Stem Cell Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000166:cytology* / Q000293:injuries* / Q000601:surgery*; D018008:Myogenin / Q000378:metabolism; D051381:Rats; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*
D003893:Desmin; D018008:Myogenin