Human engineered skeletal muscle of hypaxial origin from pluripotent stem cells with advanced function and regenerative capacity

Abstract

Human pluripotent stem cell derived muscle models show great potential for translational research. Here, we describe developmentally inspired methods for derivation of skeletal muscle cells and their utility in three-dimensional skeletal muscle organoid formation as well as skeletal muscle tissue engineering. Key steps include the directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells to embryonic muscle progenitors of hypaxial origin followed by primary and secondary fetal myogenesis into hypaxial muscle with development of a satellite cell pool and evidence for innervation in vitro. Skeletal muscle organoids faithfully recapitulate all steps of embryonic myogenesis in 3D Tissue engineered muscle exhibits organotypic maturation and function, advanced by thyroid hormone. Regenerative competence was demonstrated in a cardiotoxin injury model with evidence of satellite cell activation as underlying mechanism. Collectively, we introduce a hypaxial muscle model with canonical properties of bona fide skeletal muscle in vivo to study muscle development, maturation, disease, and repair.