Skeletal Muscle-On-A-Chip in Microgravity for Sarcopenia Modeling and Advanced Drug Screening

Microgravity has been shown to lead to both muscle atrophy and impaired muscle regeneration. The purpose was to study the efficacy of microgravity to model impaired muscle regeneration in an engineered muscle platform and then to demonstrate the feasibility of performing drug screening in this model. Engineered human muscle was launched to the International Space Station National Laboratories, where the effect of microgravity exposure for 7 days was examined by transcriptomics. Gene expression profiling analysis of skeletal muscle-on-a-chip in microgravity and in gravity at day 7 with or without drug treatment (IGF-1 and SW033291), and human muscle tissue obtained from healthy and with sarcopenia.