Muscle with Hustle

Building living tissue is like following a complex recipe. Cellular ingredients are added in careful steps, bringing together different process at the right time. In these growing mouse muscles, timing had gone awry. Watching live mice through an adapted microscope, researchers watch healthy muscle tissue at the top (highlighted in artificial red fluorescence) with muscle stem cells (green) waiting for the cues to ‘differentiate’, turning into new fibres. In the bottom tissue, lacking a protein called dystrophin, the stem cells have started to differentiate too early, fusing into longer fibres before they can move ('migrate’) into place. Researchers believe lack of dystrophin affects key proteins in mouse (and human) stem cells which disrupt the order of cues to migrate, divide and differentiate, leading to the symptoms of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

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A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Video from work by Liza Sarde and colleagues
• Stem Cells and Development, Department of Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, January 2026