Studying ischemia and reperfusion in isolated neonatal rat ventricular myocytes using coverslip hypoxia

In vitro experimental models designed to study the effects of hypoxia and ischemia typically employ oxygen-depleted media and/or hypoxic chambers. These approaches, however, allow for metabolites to diffuse away into a large volume and may not replicate the local buildup of metabolic byproducts that occur in ischemic myocardium in vivo. Coverslip hypoxia (CSH) is a recently described method for studying hypoxia and ischemia derived from the byproducts and metabolites of contractile ventricular myocytes. Hence, this method is dependent on the purity and contractile activity of the isolated myocytes. We describe herein methods for isolating neonatal rat ventricular myocytes with these characteristics, as well as means for performing CSH, identifying viable and compromised myocytes after coverslipping, and tracking pH changes during CSH.