Muscle tissue cell replacement

Muscle tissue cell replacement is a therapeutic approach in regenerative medicine focused on restoring the structural and functional integrity of skeletal or cardiac muscle through the transplantation of myogenic progenitor cells. This strategy is primarily employed for conditions where the endogenous regenerative capacity is compromised, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), volumetric muscle loss, or age-related sarcopenia (StatPearls: Muscle, Skeletal). Unlike conventional pharmacological agents that modulate specific proteins, this intervention involves the delivery of whole cells—such as myoblasts, satellite cells, or stem-cell-derived precursors—to the site of injury or degeneration (Nature Reviews Disease Primers: Muscular dystrophies). Once delivered, these cells are expected to engraft, proliferate, and fuse with existing host myofibers or differentiate into new fibers, thereby restoring contractile force and providing essential proteins like dystrophin. The target in this context is the restoration of the tissue's cellular architecture rather than the inhibition or activation of a single molecule. Significant challenges in this field include ensuring the long-term survival of transplanted cells, achieving widespread distribution within the tissue, and managing the immune response to allogeneic cell sources (Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle: Cell therapy).

Other names

Myoblast transplantationSkeletal muscle cell therapyMyogenic cell replacementMuscle regeneration therapyCell-based muscle repair

Exogenous myogenic progenitor cells are transplanted into damaged muscle where they engraft, fuse with host myofibers, or differentiate into new fibers to restore contractile function and protein expression.