Authors:

Makayla Nicole Phillips

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About Paper:

Volumetric muscle loss (VML) is a serious condition characterized by substantial and permanent skeletal muscle loss owing to numerous causes including traumatic injury and surgical removal. Given that VML results in substantial structural and functional deficits and limited treatment options exist, significant research is focused on new therapeutic strategies to promote functional muscle restoration and improve patient quality of life. Preclinical VML models and associated microscopic assessments of muscle structure and morphology (histomorphology) are critical to the evaluation and translation of next-generation therapeutic interventions for individuals with VML. Toward this end, this study aims to develop a robust and rapid histomorphological procedure for comprehensively assessing the characteristics and distributions of muscle cells in an established rodent model of VML injury. Given its user-friendly interface and diverse analytical toolkit (e.g., muscle fiber characteristics, differentiation of centrally and peripherally located muscle nuclei, microvessel identification), MuscleJ2 was utilized as the analysis software. To test the accuracy and robustness of our customized MuscleJ2-based procedure, images of laminin-stained tissue cross-sections representing experimental and control VML groups were evaluated: i) contralateral (normal) muscle, ii) VML injury without treatment, and iii) VML injury treated with novel collagen-based implant. Automated MuscleJ2 measurements, including myofiber quantity, number of centrally located nuclei, and myofiber size, were evaluated and compared to results obtained using manual assessment. Overall, the customized MuscleJ2 histomorphology procedure proved effective at differentiating VML healing outcomes for treated and control groups. Additionally, the procedure assisted in defining the novel regenerative mechanism of action observed with the collagen-based implant. Keywords: Volumetric Muscle Loss; Histomorphological Analysis; Automated Muscle Segmentation; Engineered Polymeric Collagen Scaffold; Skeletal Muscle Healing

Source:

Purdue University / 2024

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Co-authors:

Makayla Nicole Phillips