Abstract
In patients with muscle injury or muscle disease, assessment of muscle damage is typically limited to clinical signs, such as tenderness, strength, range of motion, and more recently, imaging studies. Biological markers can also be used in measuring muscle injury, such as increased creatine kinase levels in the blood, but these are not always correlated with loss in muscle function (i.e. loss of force production). This is even true of histological findings from animals, which provide a "direct measure" of damage, but do not account for loss of function. The most comprehensive measure of the overall health of the muscle is contractile force. To date, animal models testing contractile force have been limited to the muscle groups moving the ankle. Here we describe an in vivo animal model for the quadriceps, with abilities to measure torque, produce a reliable muscle injury, and follow muscle recovery within the same animal over time. We also describe a second model used for direct measurement of force from an isolated quadriceps muscle in situ.
Highlights
Several animal models exist to measure muscle contractility and to induce muscle injury via eccentric contractions
In addition to current methods for measuring contractility, we propose the use of two quadriceps models that, collectively, can measure torque and direct contractile force, induce muscle injury, as well as follow muscle function over time in a single animal
CAUTION: Once the quadriceps is attached to the load cell there is a small amount of passive force present when the muscle is stretched to resting length
Summary
Several animal models exist to measure muscle contractility and to induce muscle injury via eccentric contractions. The quadriceps are the only knee extensors, leaving no doubt regarding which muscles contributed to the force generated and making comparisons of histological analysis to contractile data potentially more accurate. In addition to current methods for measuring contractility, we propose the use of two quadriceps models that, collectively, can measure torque and direct contractile force, induce muscle injury, as well as follow muscle function (e.g. recovery from injury) over time in a single animal.
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