Meeting Abstract
Skeletal muscle is a highly active tissue that facilitates locomotion, thermoregulation and is a main driver of overall daily metabolic rate in vertebrates. Migratory birds are of particular interest for studying exercise performance and muscle physiology because of their ability to undergo extreme endurance flights and their high rates of fat metabolism. Mechanistic cell culture experiments provide access to specific isolated aspects of muscle biochemistry and physiology that are inaccessible in live animals. However, previous methods to isolate skeletal muscle cell progenitors for cell culture from birds are limited in scope to agriculturally important animals, most frequently at the embryonic or fetal stage of development. We present an adapted method for isolating primary skeletal muscle satellite cells for cell culture experiments from adult Yellow-rumped Warblers (Setophaga coronata) and characterize their phenotype and growth in vitro. While methods for isolating skeletal muscle satellite cells from adult human, rodents and embryonic birds in studies of muscle related pathologies are well established, this is the first reported isolation and growth of muscle progenitors from adult birds in culture. These methods allow for experimental manipulations inaccessible to whole animal studies and in a species that cannot be bred in captivity.
