Aging News & Information

Aging Muscles May Be Restored by Discovery of a Key to Making Muscle

Results hailed as important step toward developing new muscle to treat muscle diseases; good news for seniors with muscles wasting away from aging

Sept. 8, 2014 Promising results have been achieved in repairing damaged tissue in muscles which could lead to a new therapeutic approach to treating the millions of people suffering from muscle diseases, including those with muscular dystrophies and muscle wasting associated with cancer and aging seniors, according to the study, published September 7 in Nature Medicine.

Researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) in La Jolla, California, have developed this novel technique to promote tissue repair in damaged muscles. The technique also creates a sustainable pool of muscle stem cells needed to support multiple rounds of muscle repair.

There are two important processes that need to happen to maintain skeletal-muscle health. First, when muscle is damaged by injury or degenerative disease such as muscular dystrophy, muscle stem cellsor satellite cellsneed to differentiate into mature muscle cells to repair injured muscles.

Second, the pool of satellite cells needs to be replenished so there is a supply to repair muscle in case of future injuries. In the case of muscular dystrophy, the chronic cycles of muscle regeneration and degeneration that involve satellite-cell activation exhaust the muscle stem-cell pool to the point of no return.

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Aging Muscles May Be Restored by Discovery of a Key to Making Muscle