Tissue Engineering and the Effect of Volumetric Muscle Loss on Muscle Performance

Trauma, for so many people, creates life altering injuries. One of the major injuries that results from trauma is volumetric muscle loss (VML), which is the loss of muscle tissue that cannot be naturally regenerated and results in chronic loss of function. When a small amount of damage is done to a muscle, but the underlying extracellular matrix of the cell is still intact, the muscle can regenerate much of its volume and function. If the injury damages the extracellular matrix, the injury site is instead filled with scar tissue, which cannot regenerate muscle mass or function. Seen widely in military injuries, as well as severe motor incidents, the large amount of muscle loss has, to this point, been unrepairable. The current treatment of this is autologous tissue transfer which usually still resulting in scar tissue with a chance of graft failure. In this study, the functionality and muscle regeneration after a VML injury repaired with a decellularized extracellular matrix and minced muscle gel. Dot tracking will be used on both an uninjured muscle as well as a repaired muscle to determine the muscle performance after the injury. Various cell staining techniques will be used as well to visualize the defect and any regeneration the muscle tissue might have