To overcome the obstacles in the study of muscle disease pathology, Creative Bioarray has established a world-class cell reprogramming platform to provide clients with direct reprogramming of urine cells to obtain myogenic cells, providing technical support for researchers to develop efficient and useful models of human muscle diseases.
Introduction
The restricted availability of human skeletal muscle tissue hampers the research on muscle development and muscle disease pathology. Animal models have proven useful for in vivo observation, but this research strategy is time-consuming and expensive, and does not represent the large number of alleles that contribute to muscle diseases. In recent years, with significant advances in cell reprogramming and iPSC generation, researchers have adopted many new strategies to overcome this limitation, including direct and indirect cell reprogramming by genetic engineering. A key factor in the success of these strategies is the initial cell source, particularly the ease of access and the ability to reprogram.
Urine is an underutilized, non-invasive and reproducible source of primary human cells and has been used as a platform for urinary epithelium-based culture and iPSC reprogramming. Recent advances suggested that cells from urine have successfully generated clonal populations of autologous human cells with a high proliferative capability, significant telomerase activity and reprogrammable into multiple lineages. These features make urine-derived cells an appealing source of primary human cells for in vitro models.
Fig.1 Transduction of urine-derived cells with an iMyoD lentiviral construct for myogenic reprogramming. (Kim, 2016)
Our Services
Direct reprogramming of urine-derived cells is an efficient and reproducible process for building human myoblasts. Creative Bioarray researchers have developed advanced strategies for generating myogenic cells from urine cells derived from normal individuals or patients with muscle disease. The services we provide include but are not limited to:
- Direct reprogramming of urine-derived cells from healthy individuals into myogenic lineages using viral delivery of the muscle transcription factor MyoD.
- Reprogramming of urinary cells from patients with limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2C (LGMD2C) to the myogenic lineage associated with morphogenic myotube formation using the iMyoD reprogramming strategy.
- CRISPR/Cas9 mediated genome editing in single urine cell clones.
Applications
- Development of cellular models for muscle disease
- Research on genetic correction strategies
- Study on muscular dystrophy
Advantages
- Advanced and efficient reprogramming strategies
- Professional and reliable service
- Extensive experience in cell reprogramming
To accelerate progress in the molecular study of human muscle diseases, Creative Bioarray has developed a readily available, non-invasive source of cells to generate muscle-like cells and provides multiple cell characterization services to assay induced myogenic cells to determine the efficiency of reprogramming. If you are interested in our services, please contact us directly.
Reference
- Kim, E.Y.; et al. Direct reprogramming of urine-derived cells with inducible MyoD for modeling human muscle disease. Skeletal muscle. 2016, 6(1): 1-16.