Making Muscle and Blood Vessels from One's Own Blood... A New Approach to Treating Intractable Muscle Injuries [Reading Science]

UNIST and Yonsei University Develop Vascularized Muscle Tissue Platform 'SPARC'

Demonstrated Effectiveness in Restoring Motor Function

A team of Korean researchers has developed a technology to fabricate artificial tissue that can simultaneously regenerate both muscle and blood vessels using a patient's own blood. This approach induces both muscle regeneration and blood vessel formation within a single structure, drawing attention as a potential new alternative for treating large-volume muscle loss caused by trauma or cancer resection.

On May 20, the National Research Foundation of Korea announced that a research team led by Professor Juheon Kang from the Department of Biological Sciences at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), together with Professor Yunhee Jin's team from Yonsei University College of Medicine, has developed a microfluidic-based platform for fabricating vascularized muscle tissue, named 'SPARC'. This platform utilizes shear stress within microfluidics.

Schematic diagram of a vascularized muscle organoid simultaneously implementing a high-stiffness region for muscle regeneration and a low-stiffness region for vascular formation within a single structure using shear flow inside a microfluidic chip. Muscle cells grow and differentiate in the high-stiffness region, while vascular cells grow and differentiate in the low-stiffness region. Provided by Professor Jooheon Kang of UNIST.

This research was carried out with support from the Mid-Career Research, Young Researcher, and Basic Research Laboratory programs of the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea. The results were published online on April 22 in the international journal Advanced Materials in the field of materials science.

Large-volume muscle loss refers to a condition in which muscle tissue is extensively damaged due to trauma or cancer resection. Both muscle and blood vessels are destroyed, making natural recovery difficult, and existing implants have limitations as they tend to favor either muscle regeneration or blood vessel formation, making simultaneous regeneration of both tissues challenging.

The research team focused on the protein 'fibrin,' which is produced during the blood coagulation process. Fibrin can be obtained directly from a patient's blood, making it a personalized biomaterial with low risk of immune rejection.

The team established the SPARC platform, which precisely controls 'shear stress'—the intensity of fluid flow—using micro-pillar structures inside microfluidic channels. In regions of high shear stress, fibrin bundles were densely aligned, creating a rigid environment suitable for muscle cell differentiation. In regions of low shear stress, a flexible structure formed, allowing vascular cells to easily form networks.

As a result, muscle and blood vessels were spatially separated and grew simultaneously within a single structure. When applied to a mouse model with muscle injury, the fabricated structure connected to the host's blood vessels, promoting blood vessel reformation, muscle fiber regeneration, and recovery of motor function.

This research is regarded as distinct from existing tissue engineering technologies in that it implemented a structure capable of simultaneously inducing muscle regeneration and blood vessel formation using only autologous blood-derived fibrin. By leveraging the property of fibrin to align in response to physical stimuli, the team created different microenvironments within a single structure without mixing multiple materials.

Professor Juheon Kang of UNIST stated, "The key differentiator is that we created a composite microenvironment based on a single material by utilizing the property of fibrin to align according to physical stimuli. In the future, this technology could be applied to treat a variety of intractable diseases, including traumatic muscle injuries and tissue defects following cancer resection."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.