Isolation and Culture of Cardiac Progenitor and Cardiomyocytes from Adult Mouse

Cardiomyocytes are principal cells in the heart. Earlier it was believed that cardiomyocytes cannot divide as these are terminally differentiated cells but latest research proved that these cells can divide and it has also been reported that there are also cardiac stem and progenitor cells in the heart. Cardiac stem cells and progenitor cells have a great potential for cellular therapy after myocardial infarction and other heart diseases. Primary culture of adult cardiomyocytes is also very important for different biochemical and physiological studies. We used explants culture, cold and warm tryptic digestion method for isolation of cardiac cells. We successfully isolated cardiac cells with a great proliferation potential by cardiac explant culture method and cold digestion method but not by warm digestion. The present study demonstrated that cardiac cells could be isolated by explants culture and mild enzymatic treatment and these cells retain good proliferation ability.