Isolation and cultivation of calcium (Ca2+) tolerant cardiomyocytes from the adult rat. Improvements and applications

1. Primary cultures of cardiomyocytes provide a valuable tool for the study of the pharmacological and toxicological properties of drugs and chemicals, but for several technical reasons cardiomyocytes from adult animals are not routinely used in long-term culture. Because of significant advances in cardiovascular research, tissue engineering and cell transplantation, the need to isolate primary cells from adult animal and/or human tissue is likely to increase in the future. 2. The most common protocols for the isolation and cultivation of cardiomyocytes have been reviewed and the various approaches have been compared. The recent advances in cell culture techniques and the use of the cytoprotective agent, e. g. 2,3-butanedione monoxime greatly increases cell yield and cell viability of isolated and cultured cardiomyocytes. New concepts emerge that enabled an assessment of cellular differentiation in cultured cardiomyocytes and certain specific nuclear transcription factors may play a pivotal role in this process.