Alastair Khodabukus

Journal article J Transl Med · May 26, 2026 BACKGROUND: Skeletal muscle is a central regulator of insulin sensitivity and glucose homeostasis. The ryanodine receptor 1 (RYR1) is highly expressed in skeletal muscle and plays a key role in myogenic differentiation. We hypothesize that RYR1+ extracellu ... Full text Link to item Cite

Development and modeling of cardiac autonomic innervation.

Journal article Nature cardiovascular research · December 2025 Autonomic innervation is important for heart development and function, as well as for the response to injury and hemodynamic stress. However, the mechanisms underlying neurocardiac interactions are difficult to investigate in vivo, prompting the need for a ... Full text Cite

Human Myobundle Platform for Studying the Role of Notch Signaling in Satellite Cell Phenotype and Function.

Journal article Advanced healthcare materials · May 2025 Notch signaling plays a pivotal role in regulating satellite cell (SC) behavior during skeletal muscle development, homeostasis, and repair. While well-characterized in mouse models, the impact of Notch signaling in human muscle tissues remains largely und ... Full text Cite

Engineered myovascular tissues for studies of endothelial/satellite cell interactions.

Journal article Acta biomaterialia · October 2024 In native skeletal muscle, capillaries reside in close proximity to muscle stem cells (satellite cells, SCs) and regulate SC numbers and quiescence through partially understood mechanisms that are difficult to study in vivo. This challenge could be address ... Full text Cite

Bioengineered Model of Human LGMD2B Skeletal Muscle Reveals Roles of Intracellular Calcium Overload in Contractile and Metabolic Dysfunction in Dysferlinopathy.

Journal article Adv Sci (Weinh) · August 2024 Dysferlin is a multi-functional protein that regulates membrane resealing, calcium homeostasis, and lipid metabolism in skeletal muscle. Genetic loss of dysferlin results in limb girdle muscular dystrophy 2B/2R (LGMD2B/2R) and other dysferlinopathies - rar ... Full text Link to item Cite

Meteorin-like is an injectable peptide that can enhance regeneration in aged muscle through immune-driven fibro/adipogenic progenitor signaling.

Journal article Nat Commun · December 9, 2022 Pathologies associated with sarcopenia include decline in muscular strength, lean mass and regenerative capacity. Despite the substantial impact on quality of life, no pharmacological therapeutics are available to counteract the age-associated decline in f ... Full text Link to item Cite

Translating musculoskeletal bioengineering into tissue regeneration therapies.

Journal article Science translational medicine · October 2022 Musculoskeletal injuries and disorders are the leading cause of physical disability worldwide and a considerable socioeconomic burden. The lack of effective therapies has driven the development of novel bioengineering approaches that have recently started ... Full text Cite

Myoblast deactivation within engineered human skeletal muscle creates a transcriptionally heterogeneous population of quiescent satellite-like cells.

Journal article Biomaterials · May 2022 Satellite cells (SCs), the adult Pax7-expressing stem cells of skeletal muscle, are essential for muscle repair. However, in vitro investigations of SC function are challenging due to isolation-induced SC activation, loss of native quiescent state, and dif ... Full text Link to item Cite

Differential microRNA profiles of intramuscular and secreted extracellular vesicles in human tissue-engineered muscle.

Journal article Front Physiol · 2022 Exercise affects the expression of microRNAs (miR/s) and muscle-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs). To evaluate sarcoplasmic and secreted miR expression in human skeletal muscle in response to exercise-mimetic contractile activity, we utilized a three-di ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Three-dimensional tissue-engineered human skeletal muscle model of Pompe disease.

Journal article Commun Biol · May 5, 2021 In Pompe disease, the deficiency of the lysosomal enzyme acid alpha-glucosidase (GAA) causes skeletal and cardiac muscle weakness, respiratory failure, and premature death. While enzyme replacement therapy using recombinant human GAA (rhGAA) can significan ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Tissue-Engineered Skeletal Muscle Models to Study Muscle Function, Plasticity, and Disease

Journal article Frontiers in Physiology · February 26, 2021 Skeletal muscle possesses remarkable plasticity that permits functional adaptations to a wide range of signals such as motor input, exercise, and disease. Small animal models have been pivotal in elucidating the molecular mechanisms regulating skeletal mus ... Full text Cite

Neuromuscular Development and Disease: Learning From in vitro and in vivo Models.

Journal article Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · January 2021 The neuromuscular junction (NMJ) is a specialized cholinergic synaptic interface between a motor neuron and a skeletal muscle fiber that translates presynaptic electrical impulses into motor function. NMJ formation and maintenance require tightly regulated ... Full text Cite

Glucose Uptake and Insulin Response in Tissue-engineered Human Skeletal Muscle.

Journal article Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine · December 2020 BackgroundTissue-engineered muscles ("myobundles") offer a promising platform for developing a human in vitro model of healthy and diseased muscle for drug development and testing. Compared to traditional monolayer cultures, myobundles better mode ... Full text Cite

Tissue-Engineered Human Myobundle System as a Platform for Evaluation of Skeletal Muscle Injury Biomarkers.

Journal article Toxicological sciences : an official journal of the Society of Toxicology · July 2020 Traditional serum biomarkers used to assess skeletal muscle damage, such as activity of creatine kinase (CK), lack tissue specificity and sensitivity, hindering early detection of drug-induced myopathies. Recently, a novel four-factor skeletal muscle injur ... Full text Cite

Can we mimic skeletal muscles for novel drug discovery?

Journal article Expert opinion on drug discovery · June 2020 Full text Cite

Engineered skeletal muscles for disease modeling and drug discovery.

Journal article Biomaterials · November 2019 Skeletal muscle is the largest organ of human body with several important roles in everyday movement and metabolic homeostasis. The limited ability of small animal models of muscle disease to accurately predict drug efficacy and toxicity in humans has prom ... Full text Cite

Electrical stimulation increases hypertrophy and metabolic flux in tissue-engineered human skeletal muscle.

Journal article Biomaterials · April 2019 In vitro models of contractile human skeletal muscle hold promise for use in disease modeling and drug development, but exhibit immature properties compared to native adult muscle. To address this limitation, 3D tissue-engineered human muscles (myobundles) ... Full text Link to item Cite

In Vitro Tissue-Engineered Skeletal Muscle Models for Studying Muscle Physiology and Disease.

Journal article Advanced healthcare materials · August 2018 Healthy skeletal muscle possesses the extraordinary ability to regenerate in response to small-scale injuries; however, this self-repair capacity becomes overwhelmed with aging, genetic myopathies, and large muscle loss. The failure of small animal models ... Full text Cite

Engineering human pluripotent stem cells into a functional skeletal muscle tissue.

Journal article Nature communications · January 2018 The generation of functional skeletal muscle tissues from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) has not been reported. Here, we derive induced myogenic progenitor cells (iMPCs) via transient overexpression of Pax7 in paraxial mesoderm cells differentiated f ... Full text Cite

Striated muscle function, regeneration, and repair.

Journal article Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · November 2016 As the only striated muscle tissues in the body, skeletal and cardiac muscle share numerous structural and functional characteristics, while exhibiting vastly different size and regenerative potential. Healthy skeletal muscle harbors a robust regenerative ... Full text Cite

Factors That Affect Tissue-Engineered Skeletal Muscle Function and Physiology.

Journal article Cells, tissues, organs · January 2016 Tissue-engineered skeletal muscle has the promise to be a tool for studying physiology, screening muscle-active drugs, and clinical replacement of damaged muscle. To maximize the potential benefits of engineered muscle, it is important to understand the fa ... Full text Cite

Role of contraction duration in inducing fast-to-slow contractile and metabolic protein and functional changes in engineered muscle.

Journal article Journal of cellular physiology · October 2015 The role of factors such as frequency, contraction duration and active time in the adaptation to chronic low-frequency electrical stimulation (CLFS) is widely disputed. In this study we explore the ability of contraction duration (0.6, 6, 60, and 600 sec) ... Full text Cite

Contractile and metabolic properties of engineered skeletal muscle derived from slow and fast phenotype mouse muscle.

Journal article Journal of cellular physiology · August 2015 Satellite cells derived from fast and slow muscles have been shown to adopt contractile and metabolic properties of their parent muscle. Mouse muscle shows less distinctive fiber-type profiles than rat or rabbit muscle. Therefore, in this study we sought t ... Full text Cite

Glucose concentration and streptomycin alter in vitro muscle function and metabolism.

Journal article Journal of cellular physiology · June 2015 Cell culture conditions can vary between laboratories and have been optimised for 2D cell culture. In this study, engineered muscle was cultured in 5.5 mM low glucose (LG) or 25 mM high glucose (HG) and in the absence or presence (+S) of streptomycin and t ... Full text Cite

Streptomycin decreases the functional shift to a slow phenotype induced by electrical stimulation in engineered muscle.

Journal article Tissue engineering. Part A · March 2015 Chronic low-frequency stimulation (CLFS) has long been used to induce a fast-to-slow phenotype shift in skeletal muscle. In this study, we explore the role of frequency (10 and 20 Hz), active time (15-60%), and streptomycin in inducing a fast-to-slow shift ... Full text Cite

The effect of serum origin on tissue engineered skeletal muscle function.

Journal article Journal of cellular biochemistry · December 2014 Skeletal muscle phenotype is regulated by a complex interaction between genetic, hormonal, and electrical inputs. However, because of the interrelatedness of these factors in vivo it is difficult to determine the importance of one over the other. Over the ... Full text Cite

Defined electrical stimulation emphasizing excitability for the development and testing of engineered skeletal muscle.

Journal article Tissue engineering. Part C, Methods · May 2012 Electrical stimulation is required for the maturation of skeletal muscle and as a way to nondestructively monitor muscle development. However, the wrong stimulation parameters can result in electrochemical damage that impairs muscle development/regeneratio ... Full text Cite

Regulating fibrinolysis to engineer skeletal muscle from the C2C12 cell line.

Journal article Tissue engineering. Part C, Methods · September 2009 Muscles engineered from transformed cells would be a powerful model for the study of muscle physiology by allowing long-term in vitro studies of muscle adaptation. However, previously described methods either take >5 weeks to produce a tissue or use collag ... Full text Cite

Engineered muscle: a tool for studying muscle physiology and function.

Journal article Exercise and sport sciences reviews · October 2007 Recent advances in skeletal muscle tissue engineering have resulted in an in vitro tissue model that can be used for studying the effects of genetic alterations, pharmacological interventions, and exercise on muscle physiology and function. Here, we presen ... Full text Cite