Abstract
The primary culture of neonatal mice cardiomyocyte model enables researchers to study and understand the morphological, biochemical, and electrophysiological characteristics of the heart, besides being a valuable tool for pharmacological and toxicological studies. Because cardiomyocytes do not proliferate after birth, primary myocardial culture is recalcitrant. The present study describes an improved method for rapid isolation of cardiomyocytes from neonatal mice, as well as the maintenance and propagation of such cultures for the long term. Immunocytochemical and gene expression data also confirmed the presence of several cardiac markers in the beating cells during the long-term culture condition used in this protocol. The whole culture process can be effectively shortened by reducing the enzyme digestion period and the cardiomyocyte enrichment step.
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Acknowledgments
This work is supported by grants to R.S.V. by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD—BIO/2005–2006/007/MHRD/RAMS/859) and Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology (DBT-BT/PR5392/MED/14/693/2004).
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Editor: J. Denry Sato.
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Cardiomyocte beating in cluster (MPG 1.15 MB)
Individual beating cardiomyocytes (MPG 988 kb)
Single beating cardiomyocyte (MPG 982 kb)
(MPG 1.42 MB)
Supplementary Table 1
PCR primers used for the study (DOC 30.5 KB)
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Sreejit, P., Kumar, S. & Verma, R.S. An improved protocol for primary culture of cardiomyocyte from neonatal mice. In Vitro Cell.Dev.Biol.-Animal 44, 45–50 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11626-007-9079-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11626-007-9079-4