Ready to Cast Isogenic Control and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Human Myoblasts for 3D Engineered Muscle Tissue Experiments

Curi Bio, a leading developer of human stem cell-based platforms for drug discovery, today announced the commercial launch of their MantaReady^TM iPSC-Derived Skeletal Muscle Myoblasts specifically optimized for creating human 3D engineered muscle tissues for preclinical therapeutic discovery, high-throughput screening, and disease modeling.

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Curi Bio Launches MantaReady™ 3D Skeletal Muscle Myoblasts – Ready to Cast Isogenic Control and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Human Myoblasts for 3D Engineered Muscle Tissue (Photo: Business Wire)

The myoblast lines were developed in response to the growing demand for high quality iPSC-derived cells required for 3D skeletal muscle engineering. Large cell expansions are necessary to provide sufficient cell numbers to fabricate 3D organoids. The traditional process of expanding cells for 3D tissues is not only time consuming, but also leads to decreased cell purity and viability with multiple passages, resulting in suboptimal muscle tissue function. MantaReady cells are quality controlled to ensure optimal performance and cryopreserved in high density to enable direct cell thaw tissue casting. This time saving and variability-reducing approach eliminates the need to expand myoblasts for tissue engineering and downstream assays.

MantaReady iPSC-Derived Skeletal Muscle Myoblasts are currently provided in two formats: a wild type line produced using iPSCs from a healthy donor and a Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) disease line harboring an exon 45 deletion and a 17bp deletion in exon 54 to ensure a true dystrophin null. The isogenic pair is a game changer in the field of preclinical drug discovery. “Through our innovative technology, we’re able to provide researchers with high-quality skeletal muscle cells that can be used to accelerate the drug discovery process and translational muscle biology research,“ said Curi Bio CEO Nick Geisse. “This is a significant step forward in our mission to help researchers develop new treatment strategies for DMD.”

The cells are enriched to ensure myogenic purity is above 80% and carefully screened in both 2D and 3D engineered muscle tissues (EMTs) to guarantee function. Within just five days, the myoblasts rapidly fuse at high density, forming striated, multinucleated myotubes expressing key myogenic markers such as Desmin, Dystrophin, and MyHC. EMTs are screened for contractile twitch and tetanic force, contractile kinetics, fatigue, positive force-frequency, and longevity in culture to deliver cells that model in vivo function and provide a large experimental window to test therapeutic effect at all stages of development and maturation.

MantaReady cells are available in cryovials containing 1 million, 6 million, and 12 million cells. All formats are also available in a kit containing Curi’s proprietary MantaReady Skeletal Muscle Medium, formulated to differentiate the cells into myotubes and support 3D tissues for months in culture. “We’re excited to offer this new product to the preclinical drug discovery community,” said Curi Bio VP of Research and Partnerships Greg Luerman. “Our team has put a lot of effort into understanding what the neuromuscular disease field needs to accelerate R&D, and we believe that this product will help not just DMD research, but also for a range of diseases, aging studies, muscle damage, and more.”

Curi Bio’s new isogenic cell lines are part of the growing suite of MantaReady biological products. Additional products supporting the expanding 3D market will be added to the MantaReady line in the coming months. To learn more about how MantaReady iPSC-derived skeletal muscle cells can improve the predictive power of your experiments, or about Curi Bio’s other human-relevant preclinical platform technologies and services, please reach out at www.curibio.com/contact.

About Curi Bio

Curi Bio’s preclinical discovery platform combines human stem cells, systems, and data to accelerate the discovery of new medicines. The Curi Engine™ is a comprehensive, bioengineered platform that integrates human iPSC-derived cell models, tissue-specific biosystems, and AI/ML-enabled phenotypic screening data. Curi Bio’s suite of human stem cell-based products and services enable scientists to build more mature and predictive human iPSC-derived tissues—with a focus on cardiac, musculoskeletal, and neuromuscular models—for the discovery, safety testing, and efficacy testing of new drugs in development. By offering drug developers an integrated preclinical platform comprising highly predictive human stem cell models to generate clinically-relevant data, Curi Bio is closing the gap between preclinical data and human results, accelerating the discovery and development of safer, more effective medicines.

For more information, please visit www.curibio.com.

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