Electrical pulse stimulation of primary human skeletal muscle cells

Abstract

Electrical pulse stimulation (EPS) is an in vitro method of inducing contractions in cultured skeletal muscle cells of human and animal origin. Motor neuron activation of muscle fibres can be replaced by applying EPS on differentiated skeletal muscle cells (myotubes) in culture [1,2]. Here we describe two protocols for EPS of human myotubes in 6-well plates: acute, highfrequency (single bipolar pulses of 2 ms, 100 Hz for 200 ms every 5th sec for 5-60 min, 10-30 V) and chronic, low-frequency (single bipolar pulses of 2 ms, 1 Hz 10-30 V for 48 h) at the end of a 7 days long differentiation.