Generating primary cultures of murine cardiac myocytes and cardiac fibroblasts to study viral myocarditis.

Viruses can induce direct damage to cardiac myocytes and cardiac fibroblasts resulting in myocarditis and impaired cardiac function. Cardiac myocytes and cardiac fibroblasts display different capacities to support viral infection and generate a protective antiviral response. This chapter provides detailed protocols for generation and characterization of primary cultures of murine cardiac myocytes and cardiac fibroblasts, offering a powerful tool to probe cell type-specific responses that determine protection against viral myocarditis.