New method to grow and transplant muscle stem cells holds promise for treatment of muscular dystrophy

Satellite cells are stem cells found in skeletal muscles. While transplantation of such muscle stem cells can be a potent therapy for degenerative muscle diseases such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy, these cells tend to lose their transplantation efficiency when cultured in vitro. Researchers treated these stem cells with leukemia inhibitory factor, which effectively maintained the undifferentiated state of the satellite cells and enhanced their transplantation efficiency.