Myo-MOVES: a custom electrical stimulation system for functional studies of 3D bioengineered muscle

Abstract

Electrical pulse stimulation (EPS) is used to replicate motor neuron activation in muscle tissues, enabling in vitro studies of muscle contraction. However, both custom-built and commercial existing EPS systems often suffer from significant limitations, including limited scalability, high cost, and lack of flexibility for experimental adaptation. This work presents the Myo-MOVES platform, a practical solution for stimulating 3D skeletal muscle tissues. The device has been designed as an intuitive EPS system consisting of two main components: a selector and a stimulator that adapts to commercial 24-well culture plates. The Myo-MOVES selector enables targeted stimulation of single or multiple wells, while the stimulator delivers electrical signals via graphite electrodes to the plate containing 3D skeletal muscle samples. The Myo-MOVES platform was technically validated and employed as a proof of concept to investigate sarcolemmal damage induced by muscle contraction in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) 3D skeletal muscle tissues. Taking advantage of the versatility of the device, we validated Myo-MOVES through the assessment of force generation in DMD engineered muscle tissues and the detection of contraction-induced sarcolemmal damage via Evans blue dye uptake and the release of creatine kinase (CK), the gold standard marker of muscle damage. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of using Myo-MOVES to induce and study functionally relevant disease phenotypes in DMD 3D skeletal muscle tissues. These results highlight the system's potential as a valuable tool for future applications in the field of 3D skeletal muscle tissue engineering, including drug screening and the study of DMD therapies and other muscular diseases.