Cells (Jan 2023)

Efficient Muscle Regeneration by Human PSC-Derived CD82<sup>+</sup> ERBB3<sup>+</sup> NGFR<sup>+</sup> Skeletal Myogenic Progenitors

  • Ning Xie,
  • Sabrina N. Chu,
  • Cassandra B. Schultz,
  • Sunny S. K. Chan

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/cells12030362
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 3
p. 362

Abstract

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Differentiation of pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) is a promising approach to obtaining large quantities of skeletal myogenic progenitors for disease modeling and cell-based therapy. However, generating skeletal myogenic cells with high regenerative potential is still challenging. We recently reported that skeletal myogenic progenitors generated from mouse PSC-derived teratomas possess robust regenerative potency. We have also found that teratomas derived from human PSCs contain a skeletal myogenic population. Here, we showed that these human PSC-derived skeletal myogenic progenitors had exceptional engraftability. A combination of cell surface markers, CD82, ERBB3, and NGFR enabled efficient purification of skeletal myogenic progenitors. These cells expressed PAX7 and were able to differentiate into MHC+ multinucleated myotubes. We further discovered that these cells are expandable in vitro. Upon transplantation, the expanded cells formed new dystrophin+ fibers that reconstituted almost ¾ of the total muscle volume, and repopulated the muscle stem cell pool. Our study, therefore, demonstrates the possibility of producing large quantities of engraftable skeletal myogenic cells from human PSCs.

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