Tension and mechanical properties of muscle tissue are tightly related to proper skeletal muscle function, which makes experimental access to the biomechanics of muscle tissue development a key requirement to advance our understanding of muscle function and development. Recently developed elastic in vitro culture chambers allow for raising 3D muscle tissue under controlled conditions and to measure global tissue force generation. However, these chambers are inherently incompatible with high resolution microscopy limiting their usability to global force measurements, and preventing the exploitation of modern fluorescence based investigation methods for live and dynamic measurements. Here we present a new chamber design pairing global force measurements, quantified from post deflection, with local tension measurements obtained from elastic hydrogel beads embedded in muscle tissue. High resolution 3D video microscopy of engineered muscle development, enabled by the new chamber, shows an early mechanical tissue homeostasis that remains stable in spite of continued myotube maturation.

中文翻译：

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仿生骨骼肌组织中的整体和局部张力测量揭示了早期机械稳态

肌肉组织的张力和机械特性与骨骼肌的正常功能紧密相关，这使得实验性地了解肌肉组织发育的生物力学成为提高我们对肌肉功能和发育的认识的关键要求。最近开发的弹性体外培养腔室允许在受控条件下举起3D肌肉组织并测量整体组织力的产生。然而，这些腔室本质上与高分辨率显微镜不兼容，从而限制了其在整体力测量中的可用性，并阻止了基于现代荧光的实时和动态测量研究方法的开发。在这里，我们介绍了一种新的腔室设计，它结合了整体力测量值，这些测量值是根据偏转后的位置进行量化的 从嵌入肌肉组织的弹性水凝胶珠获得的局部张力测量值。通过新的腔室实现的工程肌肉发育的高分辨率3D视频显微镜显示了早期的机械组织动态平衡，尽管肌管不断成熟，但仍保持稳定。