Fig. 8: Schematic illustrating the rapid human neuromuscular junction (NMJ) model and its application to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) modeling.

We developed human NMJ-like tissues within 12 days using cryopreserved motor neurons (MNs) and iPSC-derived skeletal myoblasts and employed this model in ALS studies. ALS-specific cytopathies similar to those observed in patient tissues were observed, and the critical role of MNs in initiating NMJ cytopathies in ALS was evaluated. This figure was generated using Microsoft PowerPoint.