Intramuscular injection of skeletal muscle derived extracellular matrix mitigates denervation atrophy after sciatic nerve transection

Peripheral nerve injury and the associated muscle atrophy has an estimated annual healthcare burden of $150 billion dollars in the United States. When considering the total annual health-related spending of $3.5 trillion, these pathologies alone occupy about 4.3%. The prevalence of these ailments is rooted, at least in part, in the lack of specific preventative therapies that can be administered to muscle while it remains in the denervated state. To address this, skeletal muscle-derived ECM (skECM) was injected directly in denervated muscle with postoperative analysis performed at 20 weeks, including gait analysis, force production, cytokine quantification, and histological analysis. skECM was shown to be superior against non-injected muscle controls showing no difference in contraction force to uninjured muscle at 20 weeks. Cytokines IL-1 beta, IL-18, and IFN gamma appeared to mediate regeneration with statistical regression implicating these cytokines as strong predictors of muscle contraction, showing significant linear correlation.

Automated summary

Peripheral nerve injury and muscle atrophy have a significant healthcare burden in the United States, partly due to the lack of specific preventative therapies. Injecting skeletal muscle-derived ECM directly into denervated muscle can promote muscle regeneration and improve muscle function.