No relation between cardiomyocyte surface area and its viability

    CHE Hongª²Lei, YU Zhiª²Bin, XIE Manª²Jiang

    Department of Aerospace Physiology, School of Aerospace Medicine, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi¡¯an 710033, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To set up a simple and effective method to measure the cardiomyocyte surface area and its viability and to study the relation between cardiac myocyte surface area and its viability. METHODS: The cultured neonatal rat cardiac myocytes were stained by rapid eosine staining and the cell surface area was measured by NIH Image software. The absorbency of the cells at 490 nm (A490 nm) was measured by MTT assay and the cardiac myocyte viability was assessed by the ratio of A490 nm to total cell numbers. RESULTS: The cardiac myocyte surface area increased in 2-7 d of culture. The surface area of the cells cultured in serumª²containing medium was bigger than that cultured in serumª²free medium (P<0.01). The higher the cell seeding density was, the smaller the cell surface area. The total cardiac myocyte A490 nm value and A490 nm/total cell numbers did not change significantly in 3-8 d of culture. But A490 nm value and A490 nm/total cell numbers of cardiac myocytes cultured in serumª²free medium were lower than those in serumª²containing medium (P<0.01). There was a positive relation between A490 nm value and cell seeding density and A490 nm/total cell numbers reached the highest when cell seeding density was 4.5¡Á104/cm2. CONCLUSION: There is no relation between cardiac myocyte surface area and its viability under different culture conditions. ......