Empowering Engineered Muscle Function by Extending Connexin 43 Duration with Reduced Graphene Oxides
Year: 2021
Type: preprint
Abstract: ABSTRACT Engineered skeletal muscle act as therapeutics invaluable to treat injured or diseased muscle and a “living” material essential to assemble biological machinery. For normal development, skeletal myoblasts should express connexin 43, one of the gap junction proteins that promote myoblast fusion and myogenesis, during the early differentiation stage. However, myoblasts cultured in vitro often down-regulate connexin 43 before differentiation, limiting myogenesis and muscle contraction. This study demonstrates that tethering myoblasts with reduced graphene oxide (rGO) slows connexin 43 regression during early differentiation and increases myogenic mRNA synthesis. The whole RNA sequencing also confirms that the rGO on cells increases regulator genes for myogenesis, including troponin, while decreasing negative regulator genes. The resulting myotubes generated a three-fold larger contraction force than the rGO-free myotubes. Accordingly, a valveless biohybrid pump assembled with the rGO-tethered muscle increased the fluid velocity and flow rate considerably. The results of this study would provide an important foundation for developing physiologically relevant muscle and powering up biomachines that will be used for various bioscience studies and unexplored applications.
Language: English
Subfield: Surgery
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G2066624486, G270120649, Engineering Neuron-Innervated Muscle with Stimulus-Responsive Contraction and Myokine Secretion, G4035684527, G4113606792, G4473449232, NSF Science and Technology Center: Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems, Tissue microenvironment (TIMe) training program
OpenAlex ID: W4200305432