Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Progressive skeletal muscle wasting with age, also known as sarcopenia, is detrimental to the quality of life and overall health of seniors. This is attributable in part to the deterioration and loss of muscle stem cells (MuSCs) required to repair tissue damage. MuSCs isolated from aged muscles show an altered molecular response to environmental cues, leading to poor proliferation and defective regeneration. However, mechanistic understanding of how aged MuSCs integrate signals from their microenvironment remains unknown. By deconstructing the cross talk between biophysical and biochemical signaling, we propose to elucidate how aged MuSCs sense their environment. Moreover, we will study how these aberrant biophysical signalling affect the repair functions of aged MuSCs and target these changes to enhance regeneration in aged muscles. These studies will identify novel mechanisms of MuSC aging that can be targeted as therapies to delay or reverse the loss of regenerative function in the aged.