Cardiomyocyte Isolation
Cardiomyocyte Isolation - Related Videos
07:50
Isolation and Culture of Neonatal Mouse Cardiomyocytes
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Cited by 187 •
2013
Primary mouse cardiomyocyte cultures are one of the pivotal tools for the investigation of myofibrillar organization and function. The following protocol describes the isolation and culture of primary cardiomyocytes from neonatal mouse hearts. The resulting cardiomyocyte cultures may be subsequently used for a variety of biomechanical, biochemical and cell-biological assays.
07:05
Isolation and Cryopreservation of Neonatal Rat Cardiomyocytes
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Cited by 49 •
2015
The isolation of neonatal rat cardiomyocytes is a time consuming and unpredictable procedure. This study describes methods for cryopreservation and thawing of neonatal rat cardiomyocytes that allows for more efficient use of cells. The thawed NRCMs can be used for various experiments without the need for performing isolations each time.
10:12
Isolation of Cardiomyocyte Nuclei from Post-mortem Tissue
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Cited by 61 •
2012
Cardiac nuclei are isolated via density sedimentation and immunolabeled with antibodies against pericentriolar material 1 (PCM-1) to identify and sort cardiomyocyte nuclei by flow cytometry.
08:42
Isolation, Culture and Transduction of Adult Mouse Cardiomyocytes
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Cited by 35 •
2016
This protocol describes a step-by-step method for the reproducible isolation and long-term culture of adult mouse cardiomyocytes with high yield, purity, and viability.
11:02
Isolation and Physiological Analysis of Mouse Cardiomyocytes
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Cited by 25 •
2014
Individual cardiomyocytes from wild type and mutant mice can be isolated from the heart in order to study their contractility and calcium transients. This allows characterization of the contribution of cellular dysfunction to heart dysfunction from any cause.
FAQs
Collagenase provides the enzymatic digestion step that helps release individual cardiomyocytes from cardiac tissue. Its action is paired with gentle mechanical trituration rather than relying on mechanical force alone, while filtration helps process the released cells. This combination is important because the workflow aims to obtain usable single cells while preserving viability for downstream analysis.
Cardiomyocyte isolation can start with tissue perfusion or with mincing, followed by enzymatic digestion. These are alternative ways of preparing cardiac tissue before the release step, rather than separate endpoints. After digestion, gentle trituration helps free individual cells, and filtration supports collection of a preparation suitable for structural, functional, or bioengineering studies.
Mechanical handling must remain gentle because the workflow is intended to preserve cardiomyocyte viability for later measurements and engineered systems. Trituration follows digestion to help release individual cells, while filtration is part of the final cell-release and preparation sequence. Maintaining viable cells supports downstream assessment of contractility, electrophysiology, calcium handling, and responses to biochemical or mechanical cues.
The resulting cells allow direct assessment of contractility, electrophysiology, and calcium handling. These readouts describe complementary aspects of cardiac function: mechanical activity, electrical behavior, and calcium-related behavior. Together, they enable researchers to examine how isolated heart muscle cells respond to biochemical or mechanical cues before incorporating them into more complex bioengineering systems.
At a basic level, the workflow proceeds from cardiac tissue preparation to perfusion or mincing, enzymatic digestion, gentle mechanical trituration, and filtration. This sequence moves from tissue-level preparation toward individual cells while including handling intended to preserve viability. The isolated cardiomyocytes can then be analyzed directly or used as starting material for engineered cardiac constructs.
Bioengineers use isolated cardiomyocytes as foundational material for engineered heart tissues, cardiac organoids, disease models, and drug-testing platforms. In these settings, the cells provide a biological component whose function can be examined within a designed system. Their measured contractility, electrophysiology, or calcium handling can help evaluate cardiac function and therapeutic responses.
After isolation, cardiomyocytes can be integrated into biomaterial-based systems or engineered heart tissues, where researchers examine responses to biochemical and mechanical cues. This application connects cell-level measurements with designed environments intended to model cardiac function. It also allows contractility, electrophysiology, and calcium handling to inform evaluations of therapeutic responses within bioengineering platforms.