New Perspectives for Postmortem Human Satellite Cells of Different Embryological Origin

Abstract

Human postmortem skeletal muscles are a unique source of satellite cells for skeletal muscle regenerative studies. Presomite and somite satellite cells obtained by postmortem muscles have been established as populations of human skeletal muscle precursor cells able to proliferate and differentiate in vitro. It is extremely interesting to have access to a large amount of postmortem human skeletal muscle precursor cells, especially from craniofacial as well as limb skeletal muscles in order to evaluate their potential application not only for the fundamental understanding of muscle physiology and diseases but also for drug testing in a challenging 3D-shaping muscles like skeletal muscle microphysiological systems.

Keywords: embryonic origin; organoids; postmortem; presomitic muscles; satellite cells; skeletal muscle regeneration; somitic muscles.

FIGURE 1

Results on undifferentiated thyrohyoid and ileopsoas hMPCs. (A) Population doubling level (PDL) of postmortem hMPCs derived from thyrohyoid muscle obtained from 40– (orange squared symbol) and from iliopsoas muscle obtained from 71– (green triangle symbols) year-old corpses while black symbols represent the PDL of five different hMPC populations derived from vastus lateralis of alive donors in the range of 40–71 years old. (B) Picture of thyrohyoid hMPCs in Petri dishes. (C) The graph shows mean and standard deviation of [Ca²⁺]_i measurement on undifferentiated thyrohyoid (UNDIF THY) and ileopsoas (UNDIF IL) hMPCs. They significantly differ with p ≤ 0.05. (D) Representative [Ca²⁺]_i oscillation recorded on thyrohyoid hMPCs. The bar in panel B represents 100 μm.

FIGURE 2

Results of differentiated postmortem hMPCs. (A) [Ca²⁺]_i recorded as the basal level in differentiated hMPCs derived from both thyrohyoid (DIF TY) and ileopsoas (DIF IL) muscles. (B,C) Representative images of immunostaining for desmin (B) and myosin heavy chain proteins (C) on myotubes derived from postmortem thyrohyoid hMPCs. The bars represent 100 μm.