Isolation of muscle stem cells from rat skeletal muscles

Abstract

Background: Muscle stem cells (MuSCs) are involved in homeostatic maintenance of skeletal muscles and play a central role in muscle regeneration in response to injury. Thus, understanding MuSC autonomous properties is of fundamental importance for studies of muscle degenerative diseases and muscle plasticity. Rat, as an animal model, has been widely used in the skeletal muscle field, however an efficient approach for MuSC isolation through fluorescence-activated cell sorting from rat muscles has never been described. This work aims to develop and validate an effective protocol for MuSC isolation from rat skeletal muscles.Methods: Tibialis anterior, gastrocnemius, diaphragm, and the individual components of the pelvic floor muscle complex (coccygeus, iliocaudalis, and pubocaudalis) were harvested from female rats and digested for isolation of MuSCs. Three protocols, employing different cell surface markers (CD106, CD56, and CD29), were compared for their ability to isolate a pure MuSC population.Results: Cells obtained using the protocol that relies only on VCAM-1 (CD106) as a positive marker showed high expression of Pax7 upon isolation, ability to progress through myogenic lineage while in culture, and complete differentiation in serum deprived conditions. The protocol was further validated in other skeletal muscles proving to be reproducible. Conclusions:CD106 is an efficient marker for reliable isolation of MuSCs from a variety of rat skeletal muscles.