Muscle Explant
Muscle Explant - Related Videos
06:06
A Functional Motor Unit in the Culture Dish: Co-culture of Spinal Cord Explants and Muscle Cells
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Cited by 16 •
2012
Cultured muscle cells are an inadequate model to recapitulate innervated muscle in vivo. A functional motor unit can be reproduced in vitro by innervation of differentiated human primary muscle cells using rat embryo spinal cord explants. This article describes how co-cultures of spinal cord explants and muscle cells are established.
07:45
Explant Culture of Neural Tissue
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2023
The intricate structure of the vertebrate nervous system arises from a complex series of events involving cell differentiation, cell migration, and changes in cell morphology. Studying these processes is essential to our understanding of nervous system function as well as our ability to diagnose and treat disorders that result from abnormal development. However, neural tissues are relatively inaccessible for experimental manipulations, especially in embryonic mammals. As a result, many...
06:53
Isolation and Differentiation of Primary Myoblasts from Mouse Skeletal Muscle Explants
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Cited by 10 •
2019
Myoblasts are proliferating precursor cells that differentiate to form polynucleated myotubes and eventually skeletal muscle myofibers. Here, we present a protocol for efficient isolation and culture of primary myoblasts from young adult mouse skeletal muscles. The method enables molecular, genetic, and metabolic studies of muscle cells in culture.
06:25
Explant Culture for Developmental Studies
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2023
Explant culture is a technique in which living cells or tissues are removed from an embryo for continued development outside of the organism. This ex vivo approach allows researchers to manipulate and observe developing tissues in ways that are not possible in vivo. Once established, explant culture is frequently used to understand the role of genes and signaling molecules in organogenesis. This video will first introduce the basic principles of explant culture and demonstrate a protocol to...
02:21
Dissection and Mounting of Fruit Fly Larval Brain Explants
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2025
This video demonstrates the dissection and mounting of brain explants from Drosophila larvae. The central nervous system (CNS), attached to eye disks, is extracted from the larvae and then mounted on a glass slide in a physiological saline solution.
FAQs
When peripheral nerves remain attached, the preparation preserves a direct nerve–muscle context rather than isolating muscle fibers alone. This allows researchers to examine signaling between the two tissues and to follow neuromuscular junction formation or function within a structured tissue environment. If nerves are not retained, the explant can still support studies of muscle and its associated resident cells.
An intact piece of muscle maintains relationships among muscle fibers, connective tissue, resident cells, and, when retained, peripheral nerves. These interactions can influence how the tissue responds to culture conditions, injury, or experimental treatments. Preserving them gives researchers information that may be missed in experiments focused only on isolated cells, while still allowing more controlled observation than whole-animal studies.
Muscle explants support observation of physiological and pathological changes as they develop outside the body. Under defined conditions, researchers can examine responses associated with regeneration, injury, nerve–muscle signaling, or experimental treatments. Following the same structured tissue model over time helps connect an intervention or injury-related response with changes occurring across the muscle and its associated cellular environment.
The general workflow begins by removing an intact piece of muscle from an organism and maintaining it outside the body under defined culture conditions. Researchers then preserve or omit peripheral nerve connections according to the question being studied and observe tissue responses over time. This arrangement supports controlled examination of muscle structure, associated cells, nerve–muscle interactions, and responses to treatment or injury.
A muscle explant is useful when researchers need more tissue organization than isolated-cell experiments provide but more experimental control than a whole-animal study allows. The preparation retains interactions among muscle fibers, connective tissue, resident cells, and possibly nerves, while conditions remain defined outside the body. It therefore serves as an intermediate model for testing tissue responses and experimental treatments.
In neuroscience, researchers use muscle explants to investigate neuromuscular junction formation and function, nerve–muscle signaling, regeneration, and responses to injury. Retained peripheral nerves help preserve the connection being studied, while the ex vivo setting permits controlled observation of tissue behavior. These applications make the model relevant for examining how neural and muscular components respond together during normal or pathological change.