Isolation of cardiac myocytes and fibroblasts from neonatal rat pups.

Neonatal rat ventricular myocytes (NRVM) and fibroblasts (FBs) serve as in vitro models for studying fundamental mechanisms underlying cardiac pathologies, as well as identifying potential therapeutic targets. Both cell types are relatively easy to culture as monolayers and can be manipulated using molecular and pharmacological tools. Because NRVM cease to proliferate after birth, and FBs undergo phenotypic changes and senescence after a few passages in tissue culture, primary cultures of both cell types are required for experiments. Below we describe methods that provide good cell yield and viability of primary cultures of NRVM and FBs from 0 to 3-day-old neonatal rat pups.