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Molecular Metabolism

Lab-grown human muscle models mimic key exercise responses

Muscle models grown from human donor cells showed gene activity responses to electrical stimulation that overlapped with responses in those donors’ muscles after exercise.

Paper by Simon I. Dreher, Robin Schöler, Katharina S. Zorn, +13 more authorsCora Weigert
Graphical abstract from Molecular Metabolism
Open the figure at full size
Graphical abstract. Dreher et al., CC BY-NC-ND

Our read

Interventions
Studied:
Experiments in donor-derived human skeletal muscle organoids
What changed:
Electrically stimulated muscle organoids showed gene activity changes overlapping with those in the same donors’ muscles after exercise
The catch:
Whole-body metabolic effects of exercise were not measured
In the record:
One of 5 papers on electrical pulse stimulation on record: 1 with results in people, 2 in animals.

Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News

Paper
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Primary human skeletal muscle organoids—three-dimensional muscle models grown from donors’ muscle-forming cells—responded to insulin and electrical stimulation in lab experiments. Insulin is a hormone that helps control blood sugar. Researchers guided the cells’ development into muscle in a collagen-based support. The models formed aligned, contracting muscle tissue, took up glucose in response to insulin and generated repeatable force.

Electrical pulses increased glucose use and the activity of genes that typically respond to exercise. These changes in gene activity overlapped with responses seen in muscle tissue samples taken from the same donors after a single bout of exercise.

Why it matters

The authors suggest these models may help researchers study muscle metabolism and interventions relevant to diabetes.

Caveats

Responses in lab-grown muscle do not show how exercise or drug exposure would affect a whole person.

Where the evidence stands

Exercise

Worms or flies, mice and humans: replicated by independent labs. Cells: a single group.

C, W, M, H: cells, worms or flies, mice, humans. Dark: independent labs found the same change there. Light: one lab or one study. Outline: nothing yet.

Labs are independent when their papers share no last author and no institution.

Against: findings that point the other way from most findings on the same outcome.

No results posted: trials that ended over a year ago with no results on ClinicalTrials.gov and no paper reporting them.

Company ties: findings with an author at a company, or from a paper whose competing-interests statement declares ties to one.

  • 1,434 independent labs in 89 countries
  • 806 findings against
  • 292 trials, 24 with no results posted
  • Funders: National Institutes of Health and others
  • 384 of 8,018 findings with company ties

AMPK signaling

Cells, worms or flies, mice and humans: replicated by independent labs.

C, W, M, H: cells, worms or flies, mice, humans. Dark: independent labs found the same change there. Light: one lab or one study. Outline: nothing yet.

Labs are independent when their papers share no last author and no institution.

Against: findings that point the other way from most findings on the same outcome.

Company ties: findings with an author at a company, or from a paper whose competing-interests statement declares ties to one.

Includes the processes named after it and trials of drugs aimed at it.

  • 248 independent labs in 33 countries
  • 12 findings against
  • Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China and others
  • 23 of 461 findings with company ties

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