Real‐Time Functional Assay of Volumetric Muscle Loss Injured Mouse Masseter Muscles via Nanomembrane Electronics

Abstract

Skeletal muscle has a remarkable regeneration capacity to recover its structure and function after injury, except for the traumatic loss of critical muscle volume, called volumetric muscle loss (VML). Although many extremity VML models have been conducted, craniofacial VML has not been well-studied due to unavailable in vivo assay tools. Here, this paper reports a wireless, noninvasive nanomembrane system that integrates skin-wearable printed sensors and electronics for real-time, continuous monitoring of VML on craniofacial muscles. The craniofacial VML model, using biopsy punch-induced masseter muscle injury, shows impaired muscle regeneration. To measure the electrophysiology of small and round masseter muscles of active mice during mastication, a wearable nanomembrane system with stretchable graphene sensors that can be laminated to the skin over target muscles is utilized. The noninvasive system provides highly sensitive electromyogram detection on masseter muscles with or without VML injury. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the wireless sensor can monitor the recovery after transplantation surgery for craniofacial VML. Overall, the presented study shows the enormous potential of the masseter muscle VML injury model and wearable assay tool for the mechanism study and the therapeutic development of craniofacial VML.

A critical size volumetric muscle loss model in mouse masseter with impaired mastication on nutrition

“…30 Limb muscles host MuSCs of the Pax3 lineage, and FAPs from the mesoderm, while orofacial muscles have MuSCs of the Mesp1 lineage and FAPs from the ectoderm-derived neural crest. 30 Considering the particularity of orofacial muscle in embryonic origin, injury response and physiological function 7,[9][10][11]13,31,32 Our model selected the masseter for its superficial location and critical role in mastication. The masseter is the dominant jaw-closing muscle in the Rodentia, comprising between 60% and 80% of the entire masticatory muscle mass27 and contributing the most bite force.…”

“…The orofacial region harbours over 60 pieces of muscles that orchestrate intricate fine movements and diverse physiological functions, including feeding, breathing, eye movement and facial expression. 7 , 8 These critical functions may be impaired when VML occurs. Compared with muscles in the limbs and trunk, orofacial muscles are of distinct embryonic origins and response to injury.…”

The era of nano-bionic: 2D materials for wearable and implantable body sensors

“…Kim and co-workers developed a non-invasive nanomembrane system for real-time continuous monitoring of craniofacial muscles, specifically for masseter muscles that are critical for mastication. [52] These kinds of skeletal muscles have low regenerative capacity and one of the main challenges facing in vivo models is the lack of effective tools to monitor the regeneration and recovery of injured craniofacial muscles. The authors fabricated a miniaturized portable wireless electronic device based on ultrathin, low-profile, lightweight, soft, and stretchable graphene sensors that could be laminated to the skin over the target muscle to record EMG activity on free moving mice.…”

Highly-integrated, miniaturized, stretchable electronic systems based on stacked multilayer network materials

“…Stretchable electronics represent an area of focusing interest in the past decade, in part owing to the broad spectrum of applications, spreading from health monitoring (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8) and disease treatment (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16), to internet of things (17)(18)(19)(20) and soft robots (21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28), and to virtual reality and augmented reality (29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34). Stretchable inorganic electronics mainly rely on integration of high-performance inorganic components with elastomer substrates, where ingenious structural designs are key to a high degree of stretchability of the device system, since inorganic electronic components are usually rigid and brittle (35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42).…”