Beall MC, Li D, Jang J. Isolation of
Embryonic Cardiomyocytes and Cell Proliferation Assay Using Genetically Engineered Reporter Mouse Model.
Bio Protoc 2023;
13:e4802. [PMID:
37719080 PMCID:
PMC10501920 DOI:
10.21769/bioprotoc.4802]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2023] [Revised: 06/05/2023] [Accepted: 06/05/2023] [Indexed: 09/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Congenital heart disease (CHD) is often associated with myogenic defects. During heart development, cardiomyocyte growth requires essential cues from extrinsic factors such as insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF-2). To determine whether and how growth factors account for embryonic cardiomyocyte proliferation, isolation followed by culturing of embryonic cardiomyocytes can be utilized as a useful tool for heart developmental studies. Current protocols for isolating cardiomyocytes from the heart do not include a cardiomyocyte-specific reporter to distinguish cardiomyocytes from other cell types. To optimize visualization of cardiomyocyte proliferation, our protocol utilizes a Tnnt2-promoter-driven H2B-GFP knock-in mouse model (TNNT2H2B-GFP/+) for in vitro visualization of nuclear-tagged cardiomyocyte-specific fluorescence. A cardiomyocyte-specific genetic reporter paired with an effective proliferation assay improves the reproducibility of mechanistic studies by increasing the accuracy of cell identification, proliferated cell counting, and cardiomyocyte tracking. Key features • This protocol refines previous methods of cardiomyocyte isolation to specifically target embryonic cardiomyocytes. • UsesH2B-GFP/+cardiomyocyte reporters as identified by Yan et al. (2016). • Traces cell proliferation with Phospho-Histone 3 (p-H3) assay. • Has applications in assessing the role of growth factors in cardiomyocyte proliferation.
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