Researchers have succeeded in growing working muscle tissue from a skin sample — a feat that until recently was viewed as science fiction. Although the lab-grown muscle was not as strong as those in the body, the advance opens up for new approaches to tissue regeneration in patients with muscular dystrophy…

Using a newly engineered tongue-on-a-chip model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, researchers found one reason that muscle regeneration fails — muscle stem cells react poorly to signals telling them new muscles need to be formed. The study,  “A human in vitro model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy muscle formation and contractility,” published in the…

The protein product of a gene called AUF1 determines whether muscle stem cells maintain the ability to regenerate muscles lost by injury or as a result of aging or disease, according to a study conducted on mice by researchers at New-York University (NYU), Langone Medical Center and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

A protein known as integrin may play a key role in muscle tissue growth after injury or disease, a finding that could potentially lead to therapeutic targets for muscular dystrophy (MD). The study conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers, “Targeting β1-integrin signaling enhances regeneration in aged and dystrophic muscle…

Scientists for a first time have captured the entire process of muscle regeneration — from injury to fiber replacement — in a living animal, validating the role of specific stem cells in regeneration. Their work could lead to new ways of triggering this process, so as to better treat people with muscle wasting…

Mice lacking the immunomodulatory protein osteopontin have fewer Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) symptoms, a finding researchers attributed to a switch in macrophage subsets. The study supports the notion that DMD patients could benefit from treatment with osteopontin blockers. Scientists know that immune cells, recruited to damaged muscles to initiate repair, ultimately end…