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More from Mother Nature: Turning Sea Squirt Whiskers into Human Muscle

Published: March 14, 2011 Source: MPMN Medtech Pulse

University of Manchester Sea Squirt Whiskers for Muscle
Minute whiskers from tunicates—otherwise known as sea squirts—could be used to form skeletal muscle, ligaments, and nerves.

Researchers from the University of Manchester (UK) have discovered that nanoscale whiskers taken from sea creatures called tunicates—commonly known as sea squirts—could perhaps be used to form working human muscle tissue. Several thousand times smaller than muscle cells, these nanostructures are the smallest physical feature found to cause cell alignment. Alignment is important, since many types of body tissues, including muscle, contain aligned fibers that give it strength and stiffness.

The scientists have found that cellulose from sea squirts can influence the behavior of skeletal muscle cells in the laboratory. A polysaccharide consisting of long chains of sugars joined together, cellulose is usually found in plants and is the main component of paper and certain textiles such as cotton. While the material is already being used for a number of different medical applications, including wound dressings, this is the first time it has been proposed for creating skeletal muscle tissue.

Tunicates grow on rocks and man-made structures in coastal waters around the world. Because of its unique properties, the cellulose extracted from these creatures is particularly well suited for making muscle tissue .

University of Manchester academics Stephen Eichhorn and Julie Gough, working with PhD student James Dugan, chemically extract the cellulose in the form of nanowhiskers, which are only tens of nanometers wide. When aligned and parallel to each other, they cause rapid muscle cell alignment and fusion. Simple and relatively quick, this method could aid in the repair of existing muscle or even grow muscle from scratch.

“Although it is quite a detailed chemical process, the potential applications are very interesting,” Eichhorn notes.“Cellulose is being looked at very closely around the world because of its unique properties and because it is a renewable resource, but this is the first time that it has been used for skeletal muscle tissue engineering applications.” He adds that this technology offers the potential for engineering not only muscle but also architecturally aligned structures such as ligaments and nerves.

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