Muscle Transplantation Into Mice With Muscular Dystrophy

Abstract

In previous studies, skeletal muscle, normal or dystrophic, orthotopically transplanted into mice with muscular dystrophy failed to survive and was replaced by connective tissue. Another site, the kidney subcapsular area, was used to further evaluate host abnormalities in the etiology of muscular dystrophy. The muscle fibers in the implanted mass underwent degeneration followed by regeneration such as that occurring after injury to skeletal muscle. The dystrophic host did support a muscle mass beneath the kidney capsule. Normal muscle placed in dystrophic hosts was not affected by the host environment; such a transplant could not be distinguished from normal muscle placed beneath the kidney capsule of a normal host. In parallel studies, the histopathology of the established disease process was not altered as a result of placing dystrophic muscle into normal hosts.