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Calcified Tissue International Mar 2015Skeletal muscle is one of the most dynamic and plastic tissues of the human body. In humans, skeletal muscle comprises approximately 40% of total body weight and... (Review)
Review
Skeletal muscle is one of the most dynamic and plastic tissues of the human body. In humans, skeletal muscle comprises approximately 40% of total body weight and contains 50-75% of all body proteins. In general, muscle mass depends on the balance between protein synthesis and degradation and both processes are sensitive to factors such as nutritional status, hormonal balance, physical activity/exercise, and injury or disease, among others. In this review, we discuss the various domains of muscle structure and function including its cytoskeletal architecture, excitation-contraction coupling, energy metabolism, and force and power generation. We will limit the discussion to human skeletal muscle and emphasize recent scientific literature on single muscle fibers.
Topics: Humans; Muscle, Skeletal
PubMed: 25294644
DOI: 10.1007/s00223-014-9915-y -
Comprehensive Physiology Jul 2015Skeletal muscles are essential for vital functions such as movement, postural support, breathing, and thermogenesis. Muscle tissue is largely composed of long,... (Review)
Review
Skeletal muscles are essential for vital functions such as movement, postural support, breathing, and thermogenesis. Muscle tissue is largely composed of long, postmitotic multinucleated fibers. The life-long maintenance of muscle tissue is mediated by satellite cells, lying in close proximity to the muscle fibers. Muscle satellite cells are a heterogeneous population with a small subset of muscle stem cells, termed satellite stem cells. Under homeostatic conditions all satellite cells are poised for activation by stimuli such as physical trauma or growth signals. After activation, satellite stem cells undergo symmetric divisions to expand their number or asymmetric divisions to give rise to cohorts of committed satellite cells and thus progenitors. Myogenic progenitors proliferate, and eventually differentiate through fusion with each other or to damaged fibers to reconstitute fiber integrity and function. In the recent years, research has begun to unravel the intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms controlling satellite cell behavior. Nonetheless, an understanding of the complex cellular and molecular interactions of satellite cells with their dynamic microenvironment remains a major challenge, especially in pathological conditions. The goal of this review is to comprehensively summarize the current knowledge on satellite cell characteristics, functions, and behavior in muscle regeneration and in pathological conditions.
Topics: Animals; Cell Differentiation; Humans; Muscle, Skeletal; Regeneration; Satellite Cells, Skeletal Muscle
PubMed: 26140708
DOI: 10.1002/cphy.c140068 -
American Journal of Physiology. Cell... Jun 2023Skeletal muscle memory is an exciting phenomenon gaining significant traction across several scientific communities, among exercise practitioners, and the public.... (Review)
Review
Skeletal muscle memory is an exciting phenomenon gaining significant traction across several scientific communities, among exercise practitioners, and the public. Research has demonstrated that skeletal muscle tissue can be "primed" by earlier positive encounters with exercise training that can enhance adaptation to later retraining, even following significant periods of exercise cessation or detraining. This review will describe and discuss the most recent research investigating the underlying mechanisms of skeletal muscle memory: ) "cellular" muscle memory and, ) "epigenetic" muscle memory, as well as emerging evidence of how these theories may work in synergy. We will discuss both "positive" and "negative" muscle memory and highlight the importance of investigating muscle memory for optimizing exercise interventions and training programs as well as the development of therapeutic strategies for counteracting muscle wasting conditions and age-related muscle loss. Finally, important directions emerging in the field will be highlighted to advance the next generation of studies in skeletal muscle memory research into the future.
Topics: Humans; Muscle, Skeletal; Exercise; Muscular Atrophy; Adaptation, Physiological; Muscle Cells
PubMed: 37154489
DOI: 10.1152/ajpcell.00099.2023 -
Journal of Sport Rehabilitation Apr 2017Eccentric-contraction-induced skeletal muscle injuries, included in what is clinically referred to as muscle strains, are among the most common injuries treated in the... (Review)
Review
Eccentric-contraction-induced skeletal muscle injuries, included in what is clinically referred to as muscle strains, are among the most common injuries treated in the sports medicine setting. Although patients with mild injuries often fully recover to their preinjury levels, patients who suffer moderate or severe injuries can have a persistent weakness and loss of function that is refractory to rehabilitation exercises and currently available therapeutic interventions. The objectives of this review were to describe the fundamental biophysics of force transmission in muscle and the mechanism of muscle-strain injuries, as well as the cellular and molecular processes that underlie the repair and regeneration of injured muscle tissue. The review also summarizes how commonly used therapeutic modalities affect muscle regeneration and opportunities to further improve our treatment of skeletal muscle strain injuries.
Topics: Humans; Muscle, Skeletal; Muscular Atrophy; Recovery of Function; Regeneration; Sprains and Strains
PubMed: 27992284
DOI: 10.1123/jsr.2016-0107 -
Nature Reviews. Disease Primers Oct 2023Traumatic muscle injury represents a collection of skeletal muscle pathologies caused by trauma to the muscle tissue and is defined as damage to the muscle tissue that... (Review)
Review
Traumatic muscle injury represents a collection of skeletal muscle pathologies caused by trauma to the muscle tissue and is defined as damage to the muscle tissue that can result in a functional deficit. Traumatic muscle injury can affect people across the lifespan and can result from high stresses and strains to skeletal muscle tissue, often due to muscle activation while the muscle is lengthening, resulting in indirect and non-contact muscle injuries (strains or ruptures), or from external impact, resulting in direct muscle injuries (contusion or laceration). At a microscopic level, muscle fibres can repair focal damage but must be completely regenerated after full myofibre necrosis. The diagnosis of muscle injury is based on patient history and physical examination. Imaging may be indicated to eliminate differential diagnoses. The management of muscle injury has changed within the past 5 years from initial rest, immobilization and (over)protection to early activation and progressive loading using an active approach. One challenge of muscle injury management is that numerous medical treatment options, such as medications and injections, are often used or proposed to try to accelerate muscle recovery despite very limited efficacy evidence. Another challenge is the prevention of muscle injury owing to the multifactorial and complex nature of this injury.
Topics: Humans; Muscle, Skeletal
PubMed: 37857686
DOI: 10.1038/s41572-023-00469-8 -
Small (Weinheim An Der Bergstrasse,... Jun 2019Skeletal muscle tissue engineering (SMTE) aims at repairing defective skeletal muscles. Until now, numerous developments are made in SMTE; however, it is still... (Review)
Review
Skeletal muscle tissue engineering (SMTE) aims at repairing defective skeletal muscles. Until now, numerous developments are made in SMTE; however, it is still challenging to recapitulate the complexity of muscles with current methods of fabrication. Here, after a brief description of the anatomy of skeletal muscle and a short state-of-the-art on developments made in SMTE with "conventional methods," the use of 3D bioprinting as a new tool for SMTE is in focus. The current bioprinting methods are discussed, and an overview of the bioink formulations and properties used in 3D bioprinting is provided. Finally, different advances made in SMTE by 3D bioprinting are highlighted, and future needs and a short perspective are provided.
Topics: Bioprinting; Cell Culture Techniques; Cells, Cultured; Humans; Muscle, Skeletal; Printing, Three-Dimensional; Regenerative Medicine; Tissue Engineering; Tissue Scaffolds
PubMed: 31012262
DOI: 10.1002/smll.201805530 -
Sports Medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) Apr 2019Physical activity and sports play major roles in the overall health status of humans. It is well known that regular exercise helps to lower the risk for a broad variety... (Review)
Review
Physical activity and sports play major roles in the overall health status of humans. It is well known that regular exercise helps to lower the risk for a broad variety of health problems, such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. Being physically active induces a wide variety of molecular adaptations, for example fiber type switches or other metabolic alterations, in skeletal muscle tissue. These adaptations are based on exercise-induced changes to the skeletal muscle transcriptome. Understanding their nature is crucial to improve the development of exercise-based therapeutic strategies. Recent research indicates that specifically epigenetic mechanisms, i.e., pathways that induce changes in gene expression patterns without altering the DNA base sequence, might play a major role in controlling skeletal muscle transcriptional patterns. Epigenetic mechanisms include DNA and histone modifications, as well as expression of specific microRNAs. They can be modulated by environmental factors or external stimuli, such as exercise, and eventually induce specific and fine-tuned changes to the transcriptional response. In this review, we highlight current knowledge on epigenetic changes induced in exercising skeletal muscle, their target genes, and resulting phenotypic changes. In addition, we raise the question of whether epigenetic modifications might serve as markers for the design and management of optimized and individualized training protocols, as prognostic tools to predict training adaptation, or even as targets for the design of "exercise mimics".
Topics: Adaptation, Physiological; Age Factors; Endurance Training; Epigenesis, Genetic; Exercise; Gene Expression Regulation; Histones; Humans; MicroRNAs; Muscle, Skeletal; Protein Processing, Post-Translational; Resistance Training; Transcriptome
PubMed: 30778851
DOI: 10.1007/s40279-019-01070-4 -
Nutrients Aug 2019The active form of vitamin D (calcitriol) exerts its biological effects by binding to nuclear vitamin D receptors (VDRs), which are found in most human extraskeletal... (Review)
Review
The active form of vitamin D (calcitriol) exerts its biological effects by binding to nuclear vitamin D receptors (VDRs), which are found in most human extraskeletal cells, including skeletal muscles. Vitamin D deficiency may cause deficits in strength, and lead to fatty degeneration of type II muscle fibers, which has been found to negatively correlate with physical performance. Vitamin D supplementation has been shown to improve vitamin D status and can positively affect skeletal muscles. The purpose of this study is to summarize the current evidence of the relationship between vitamin D, skeletal muscle function and physical performance in athletes. Additionally, we will discuss the effect of vitamin D supplementation on athletic performance in players. Further studies are necessary to fully characterize the underlying mechanisms of calcitriol action in the human skeletal muscle tissue, and to understand how these actions impact the athletic performance in athletes.
Topics: Animals; Athletes; Athletic Performance; Calcitriol; Dietary Supplements; Humans; Muscle Contraction; Muscle Strength; Muscle, Skeletal; Nutritional Status; Receptors, Calcitriol; Signal Transduction; Vitamin D Deficiency
PubMed: 31382666
DOI: 10.3390/nu11081800 -
Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and... Dec 2022Human pluripotent stem cell-derived muscle models show great potential for translational research. Here, we describe developmentally inspired methods for the derivation...
BACKGROUND
Human pluripotent stem cell-derived muscle models show great potential for translational research. Here, we describe developmentally inspired methods for the derivation of skeletal muscle cells and their utility in skeletal muscle tissue engineering with the aim to model skeletal muscle regeneration and dystrophy in vitro.
METHODS
Key steps include the directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells to embryonic muscle progenitors followed by primary and secondary foetal myogenesis into three-dimensional muscle. To simulate Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cell line was compared to a CRISPR/Cas9-edited isogenic control line.
RESULTS
The established skeletal muscle differentiation protocol robustly and faithfully recapitulates critical steps of embryonic myogenesis in two-dimensional and three-dimensional cultures, resulting in functional human skeletal muscle organoids (SMOs) and engineered skeletal muscles (ESMs) with a regeneration-competent satellite-like cell pool. Tissue-engineered muscle exhibits organotypic maturation and function (up to 5.7 ± 0.5 mN tetanic twitch tension at 100 Hz in ESM). Contractile performance could be further enhanced by timed thyroid hormone treatment, increasing the speed of contraction (time to peak contraction) as well as relaxation (time to 50% relaxation) of single twitches from 107 ± 2 to 75 ± 4 ms (P < 0.05) and from 146 ± 6 to 100 ± 6 ms (P < 0.05), respectively. Satellite-like cells could be documented as largely quiescent PAX7 cells (75 ± 6% Ki67 ) located adjacent to muscle fibres confined under a laminin-containing basal membrane. Activation of the engineered satellite-like cell niche was documented in a cardiotoxin injury model with marked recovery of contractility to 57 ± 8% of the pre-injury force 21 days post-injury (P < 0.05 compared to Day 2 post-injury), which was completely blocked by preceding irradiation. Absence of dystrophin in DMD ESM caused a marked reduction of contractile force (-35 ± 7%, P < 0.05) and impaired expression of fast myosin isoforms resulting in prolonged contraction (175 ± 14 ms, P < 0.05 vs. gene-edited control) and relaxation (238 ± 22 ms, P < 0.05 vs. gene-edited control) times. Restoration of dystrophin levels by gene editing rescued the DMD phenotype in ESM.
CONCLUSIONS
We introduce human muscle models with canonical properties of bona fide skeletal muscle in vivo to study muscle development, maturation, disease and repair.
Topics: Humans; Muscular Dystrophy, Duchenne; Muscle, Skeletal; Muscle Development; Satellite Cells, Skeletal Muscle; Muscle Fibers, Skeletal
PubMed: 36254806
DOI: 10.1002/jcsm.13094 -
Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy =... Jun 2023Skeletal muscle is the most extensive tissue in mammals, and they perform several functions; it is derived from paraxial mesodermal somites and undergoes hyperplasia and... (Review)
Review
Skeletal muscle is the most extensive tissue in mammals, and they perform several functions; it is derived from paraxial mesodermal somites and undergoes hyperplasia and hypertrophy to form multinucleated, contractile, and functional muscle fibers. Skeletal muscle is a complex heterogeneous tissue composed of various cell types that establish communication strategies to exchange biological information; therefore, characterizing the cellular heterogeneity and transcriptional signatures of skeletal muscle is central to understanding its ontogeny's details. Studies of skeletal myogenesis have focused primarily on myogenic cells' proliferation, differentiation, migration, and fusion and ignored the intricate network of cells with specific biological functions. The rapid development of single-cell sequencing technology has recently enabled the exploration of skeletal muscle cell types and molecular events during development. This review summarizes the progress in single-cell RNA sequencing and its applications in skeletal myogenesis, which will provide insights into skeletal muscle pathophysiology.
Topics: Animals; Muscle, Skeletal; Muscle Fibers, Skeletal; Cell Differentiation; Mammals; Muscle Development; Developmental Biology; Sequence Analysis, RNA
PubMed: 37003036
DOI: 10.1016/j.biopha.2023.114631