UCLA scientists report their ability to isolate, mature, and transplant skeletal muscle cells created from human pluripotent stem cells. These findings, they suggest, could be a major step toward developing a stem cell replacement therapy for muscle diseases such as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

The study was published in the journal Nature Cell Biology by senior author April Pyle, associate professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at UCLA.

For years, explains a media release from University of California – Los Angeles Health Sciences, scientists have been trying different methods that direct human pluripotent stem cells to generate skeletal muscle stem cells that can function appropriately in living muscle and regenerate dystrophin-producing muscle fibers. However, the study led by Pyle found that the current methods are inefficient; they produce immature cells that are not appropriate for modeling Duchenne in the laboratory or creating a cell replacement therapy for the disease.

“We have found that just because a skeletal muscle cell produced in the lab expresses muscle markers, doesn’t mean it is fully functional,” says Pyle, also a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.

“For a stem cell therapy for Duchenne to move forward, we must have a better understanding of the cells we are generating from human pluripotent stem cells compared to the muscle stem cells found naturally in the human body and during the development process.”

By analyzing human development, the researchers found a fetal skeletal muscle cell that is extraordinarily regenerative. Upon further analysis of these fetal muscle cells two new cell surface markers called ERBB3 and NGFR were discovered; this enabled the reserchers to precisely isolate muscle cells from human tissue and separate them from various cell types created using human pluripotent stem cells.

Once they were able to isolate skeletal muscle cells using the newly identified surface markers, the research team matured those cells in the lab to create dystrophin-producing muscle fibers. The muscle fibers they created were uniformily muscle cells, but the fibers were still smaller than those found in real human muscle, the release continues.

The skeletal muscle cells were not maturing properly, according to lead author Michael Hicks. “We needed bigger, stronger muscle that also had the ability to contract.”

Once again, the team looked to the natural stages of human development for answers. Hicks discovered that a specific cell signaling pathway called TGF Beta needs to be turned off to enable generation of skeletal muscle fibers that contain the proteins that help muscles contract. Finally, the team tested their new method in a mouse model of Duchenne.

“Our long term goal is to develop a personalized cell replacement therapy using a patient’s own cells to treat boys with Duchenne,” Hicks continues. “So, for this study we followed the same steps, from start to finish, that we’d follow when creating these cells for a human patient.”

First, the Duchenne patient cells were reprogrammed to become pluripotent stem cells. The researchers then removed the genetic mutation that causes Duchenne using the gene editing technology CRISPR-Cas9. Using the ERBB3 and NGFR surface markers, the skeletal muscle cells were isolated and then injected into mice at the same time a TGF Beta inhibitor was administered.

“The results were exactly what we’d hoped for,” Pyle shares in the release. “This is the first study to demonstrate that functional muscle cells can be created in a laboratory and restore dystrophin in animal models of Duchenne using the human development process as a guide.”

Further research will focus on generating skeletal muscle stem cells that can respond to continuous injury and regenerate new muscle long-term using the team’s new isolation and maturation strategy, the release concludes.

[Source(s): University of California – Los Angeles Health Sciences, Science Daily]