Fabrication of multi-well platform with electrical stimulation for efficient myogenic commitment of C2C12 cells

To engineer tissue-like structures, cells are required to organize themselves into three-dimensional networks that mimic the native tissue micro-architecture. Here, we present agarose-based multi-well platform incorporated with electrical stimulation to build skeletal muscle-like tissues in a facile and highly reproducible fashion. Electrical stimulation of C2C12 cells encapsulated in collagen/matrigel hydrogels facilitated the formation 3D muscle tissues. Consequently, we confirmed the transcriptional upregulations of myogenic related genes in the electrical stimulation group compared to non-stimulated control group in our multi-well 3D culture platform. Given the robust fabrication, engineered muscle tissues in multi-well platform may find their use in high-throughput biological studies drug screenings.