Mechanical measurement of contractile function of isolated ventricular myocytes

Isolation of ventricular myocytes from all species of animals has revolutionized the field of cardiovascular research, allowing the assessment of true cardiac effects of drugs, treatments, and so on. With recent advances in physiology at the cellular level, direct assessment of isolated ventricular myocyte mechanics has become an increasingly powerful and important area of research. This technique provides important information on excitation-contraction coupling of the heart, either when investigating the effect of a drug on the heart or mechanical function under certain pathophysiological states. The goal of this chapter is to provide a detailed list of methods for isolation of ventricular myocytes from both rats and mice, as well as a list of certain "tricks" that have proven useful in enhancing the yield of viable cells from the whole heart. Mastering the isolation of myocytes will provide a much better framework for real-time beat-to-beat recording of myocyte contraction as well as intracellular Ca2+ transients.