Influences on muscle stem cell migration
Posted November 14, 2011
Josh Thompson
Migration involves the movement of an object, person or anything else from one place to another. Stem cells, which are cells capable of developing into other different types of cells in the body, can migrate. Stem cell migration is a well-established aspect of tissue maintenance and regeneration in biology.
However, this migration has not been described well in skeletal muscle stem cells. The question of whether muscle stem cells, called satellite cells, can be activated at a distance from an acute injury (a type of injury characterized by rapid onset and progression) and then “called” to the injury to help in its repair has been suggested several times over the past 25 years.Our understanding of how, why and even whether it occurs within living organisms remains minimal.
During muscle injury, a plethora of factors are released into the satellite cells’ environment. In order to study the satellite cells’ migratorial activities, I use a time-lapse video assay and define medium conditions under which primary satellite cells taken from mouse muscle have only minimal motility. I then use a physiological stimulus (Crush Muscle Extract), which mimics the factors released during muscle injury, to see if it will increase satellite cell motility.
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