Isolation and culture of smooth muscle cells from human umbilical cord arteries.

A short method is described for obtaining a large number of pure vascular smooth muscle cells in culture. The smooth muscle cells were isolated from human umbilical cord arteries digested twice by an enzyme mixture of collagenase, trypsin, elastase, and DNAase with addition of alpha-tosyl-lysyl chloromethane. Primary cell culture and first subculture were not contaminated by endothelial cells, no Factor VIII being produced. The cultures consisted of smooth muscle cells as appeared from phase contrast and electron microscopy.