Scientists Regenerate Rat Muscle Tissue

Zothecula writes Muscle lost through traumatic injury, congenital defect, or tumor ablation may soon be regenerated from within. A team of researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has shown how stem cells in the body of mice and rats can be mobilized to form new muscle in damaged regions. "Working to leverage the body’s own regenerative properties, we designed a muscle-specific scaffolding system that can actively participate in functional tissue regeneration," explains Sang Jin Lee, senior author on the study. This scaffold was implanted in the rats' tibialis anterior muscle (which is found below the knee), serving as a kind of home for the muscle progenitor cells to grow and develop.

Comments

Nerve control

[onix]

That seems to be less than 1/2 of a solution. Nerve ending working in sync to create useful motion would be needed, no?

Re:Nerve control

[i kan reed]

Not necessarily. I'm sure this is still not nuanced enough, and someone with a better knowledge of anatomy is going to come in and correct me, but I seem to recall from middle school biology(yeah that's the level I'm working on here) that striated skeletal muscle strands work cooperatively naturally, without all them needing to be stimulated by nerves independently.

So, naturally you'd need some nerves in order to stimulate the chemical pathways that induce contraction and expansion among the muscle group, but if you only lost some of the muscle it might still work?

I don't know for sure.

Re:Nerve control

[quantumghost]

That seems to be less than 1/2 of a solution. Nerve ending working in sync to create useful motion would be needed, no?

Partially correct. I was going to post saying that this was only half the solution for another reason.

A nerve needs to contact the muscle body which would allow control of the muscle, as a denervated muscle is mostly useless as it will atrophy away.

The other shoe that needs to drop is the fascial layer of the muscle. Without it the muscle is also useless. (Fascia is the tough fiberous out layer of the muscle that provides structural integrity and allows the muscle to function - think tendons. Without fascia a muscle is like a car without a frame - the muscle can contract, but has nothing to pull against). In traumtic injury, muscles can be damaged, but they have a pretty good regenerative ability, the fascia, which is much less cellular, is much tougher to fix....this, in a sense, why hernias are such a problem, its not a defect in the muscle, it's the fascia.

This may however be great for some musculodegenerative diseases like muscular dystrophy, but using the pt's own stem cells would not work...they're inherently defective. If you have a suitable donor, that was disease free, that might be a cure.

Regardless, this is a great accomplishment, hope they can build upon and improve this!

Big deal

[kruach aum]

I've been regenerating my own muscle tissue for years. Don't skip leg day, son

Re:Big deal

[Bengie]

You don't actually gain more muscle cells, you just make your current cells bigger and stronger.

sez The Bubonic Plague:

[Mister Liberty]

"thanks for giving me Mobile."

It used to be bigger...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, ya, I need my junk "regenerated", I seem to have lost a foot of muscle tissue due to a birth defect.

Pitch that to a funding board and you will be swimming in money.

Re:Looks like our problems are over

[peragrin]

Once we figure out rats we can then move on to pigs which share many traits with humans.

However once we can generate pig muscles then we can make an unlimited supply of bacon.

Now doesn't that sound good.

Mmmmmm!

[Frosty Piss]

Scientists Regenerate Rat Muscle Tissue

Dinner is served.

Post heart attack damage

[DigiShaman]

Being that the heart is it's own type of muscle, has it been confirmed if this would help regrow dead heart tissue from a heart attack damage?

Re:Post heart attack damage

[Howler]

It seems that there is definitely a chance of something like this working on damaged heart tissue. I posted a link to Extracelluar Matrix regeneration being researched at the University of Pittsburgh. Here is a video.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/medicines-cutting-edge-re-growing-organs/

Similar to Extracelluar Matrix

[Howler]

Interesting, but seems very similar to Extracelluar Matrix researched at the University of Pittsburgh (http://www.mirm.pitt.edu/badylak/)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/health/research/human-muscle-regenerated-with-animal-help.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Definitely some great progress being made in this field of study, and I for one, am glad of it.

I didn't even know Scientists HAD rat muscles!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I guess that explains the hunch...

Brain

[Taco Cowboy]

Brain is the most wonderful organ there is

If they can regenerate brain cells using the stem cells, a lot of brain-related illnesses / injuries might be cured - from ALS to Alzheimer Disease to people suffering from brain hemorrhages / tumors / cancers to diseases such as Japanese Encephalitis which affected the brain, and so on

Who knows? They might even find ways to cure stupidity

RATS

[HeLLFiRe1151]

They always get the good stuff first.

House episode?

[griffo]

I smell a House episode where he finally is cured of his Vicodin addiction by elimination of the pain of the missing leg muscle...