Harvard University researchers have shown through mice studies that it may be possible to restore healthy muscle among those afflicted by muscular dystrophy by injecting purified stem cells isolated from adult skeletal muscle.

The researchers have revealed that they derived the muscle-building stem cells from a larger pool of so-called satellite cells, which normally associate with mature muscle fibres and play a role in muscle growth and repair.

They say that besides their contributions to mature muscle, the injected cells also replenished the pool of regenerative cells normally found in muscle.

According to them, those stem cells enabled the treated muscle to undergo subsequent rounds of injury repair.

"Our work shows proof-of-concept that purified muscle stem cells can be used in therapy," said Amy Wagers of the university, noting that in some cases the stem cells replaced more than 90 percent of the muscle fibres.

She says that her team is now trying to device ways to isolate such stem cells from human muscle as would be equivalent to those in the mice they studied, in order to realise a therapy based on their findings.

Wagers says that in a previous study her team had identified a set of five markers that characterize the only subset of satellite cells responsible for forming muscle, which they also refer to as skeletal muscle precursors (SMPs).

The researcher says that she and her colleagues analysed the stem cell and regenerative properties of those SMPs in their latest study.