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Updated: Aug 14, 2026

Isolation and Culture of Adult Mouse Cardiomyocytes for Cell Signaling and in vitro Cardiac Hypertrophy
Published on: May 21, 2014
Alpha1-adrenergic stimulation induced hypertrophy in protein kinase C down-regulated cultured cardiac myocytes
1First Department of Internal Medicine, Kinki University School of Medicine, Osaka-Sayama, Osaka, Japan.
Abstract:
To examine whether protein kinase C (PKC) activation is essential for the induction of cardiac myocyte hypertrophy caused by alpha1-adrenergic stimulation, we investigated the hypertrophic effect of phenylephrine in PKC down-regulated and non-treated cultured cardiac myocytes obtained from neonatal Sprague-Dawley rat ventricles. The treatment with 10 nmol/L 12-tetra decanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) for more than 2 hours decreased PKC activity by approximately 80% without marked hypertrophy. Phenylephrine increased [14C] phenylalanine (Phe) incorporation in both TPA non-treated and treated cells, 1.54- and 1.71-fold as large as control, respectively. The cell surface area also enlarged in both groups, 1.67- and 1.74-fold, respectively. Thus, phenylephrine induced the similar grade hypertrophy in cultured cardiac myocytes even when PKC was down-regulated. These results suggest that conventional PKC activation may not be essential for mediating myocyte hypertrophy by alpha1-adrenergic stimulation.
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