My research project is to engineer relatively large
and thick artificial muscle tissue constructs with densely packed,
uniformly aligned and highly differentiated myofibers. I have developed
a simplified hydrogel micromolding approach utilizing the microfabricated
posts to simultaneously create pores within the tissue constructs
for better oxygen and nutrient transport and induce uniform 3D cell
alignment during the process of constrained cell-mediated gel compaction.
This approach has been proved feasible to generate muscle tissue
networks made of both skeletal myoblasts and cardiomyocytes.
Figure 1. A) 3D OCT (optical coherence tomography)
image showing the topology of the formed muscle tissue network.
An optical cross-section (denoted by ‘S’) was also obtained. B)
Aligned myotubes were striated and myogenin-positive 10 days after
differentiation was initiated. C) Cell orientation map was overlayed
on the microscopic image of the tissue network. The distribution
of cell orientation angles shown in the bottom histogram revealed
the high degree of uniaxial cell alignment.
Movie 1. Spontaneously contracting tissue networks
made of neonatal rat cardiomyotes.
