Cryopreservation of tissue engineered skeletal muscle

Tissue engineered skeletal muscle plays an important role not only in the field of regenerative medicine, but also in emerging areas such as soft robotics, organ-on-a-chip models of disease, and drug testing. However, further expansion of the applications of tissue engineered skeletal muscle models will require a suitable method for their long-term storage and shipment. Cryopreservation has long been the standard for long-term cell storage, but when it comes to the freezing of 3D tissues, many complications arise due to heat and mass transfer limitations. Here, we use a tissue engineered skeletal muscle bioactuator as a model to characterize the effects of freezing on skeletal muscle viability, gene expression, myotube structure, and force generation. We optimize the freezing medium composition and compare the effects of freezing on both undifferentiated and differentiated engineered skeletal muscle tissue constructs. We report an optimized protocol of freezing skeletal muscle constructs while undifferentiated, which not only maintains cell viability, but leads to a 3-fold increase in force production as compared to unfrozen muscle. The reported timeline for skeletal muscle tissue fabrication, freezing, and revival not only promotes a more streamlined fabrication process, but will further enable collaborative research efforts through the shipment of pre-formed skeletal muscle constructs.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Bioengineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Grant, Lauren

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bashir, Rashid

• biobot
• bioactuator
• skeletal muscle
• tissue engineering
• cryopreservation

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2018 Lauren Grant

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101509

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/101509