The contractile function of skeletal muscle is essential for maintaining the vital activity of life. Muscular diseases such as muscular dystrophy severely compromise the quality of life of patients and ultimately lead to death. There is therefore an urgent need to develop therapeutic agents for these diseases. In a previous study, we showed that three-dimensional skeletal muscle tissues fabricated using the magnetic force-based tissue engineering technique exhibited contractile activity, and that drug effects could be evaluated based on the contractile activity of the skeletal muscle tissues. However, the reported method requires a large number of cells and the tissue preparation procedure is complex. It is therefore necessary to improve the tissue preparation method. In this study, a miniature device made of polydimethylsiloxane was used to simplify the production of contracting skeletal muscle tissues applicable to high-throughput screening. The effects of model drugs on the contractile force generation of skeletal muscle tissues prepared from mouse C2C12 myoblast and human induced pluripotent stem cells were evaluated using the miniature muscle device. The results indicated that the muscle device system could provide a useful tool for drug screening.

骨骼肌的收缩功能对于维持生命的重要活动至关重要。诸如肌营养不良症之类的肌肉疾病严重损害了患者的生活质量，并最终导致死亡。因此，迫切需要开发用于这些疾病的治疗剂。在先前的研究中，我们表明使用基于磁力的组织工程技术制造的三维骨骼肌组织表现出收缩活性，并且可以基于骨骼肌组织的收缩活性来评估药物作用。但是，所报道的方法需要大量细胞，并且组织制备过程复杂。因此，有必要改进组织制备方法。在这项研究中，使用由聚二甲基硅氧烷制成的微型设备来简化适用于高通量筛选的收缩性骨骼肌组织的生产。使用微型肌肉设备评估了模型药物对由小鼠C2C12成肌细胞和人诱导的多能干细胞制备的骨骼肌组织收缩力产生的影响。结果表明，肌肉设备系统可以为药物筛选提供有用的工具。