Porcine mitral valve interstitial cells in culture

There are connective tissue cells present within the interstitium of the heart valves. This study was designed to isolate and characterize mitral valve interstitial cells from the anterior leaflet of the mitral valve. Explants obtained from the distal part of the leaflet, having been scraped free of surface endocardial cells, were incubated in medium 199 supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum. Cells grew out of the explant after 3 to 5 days and by 3 weeks these cells were harvested and passaged. Passages 1 to 22 were characterized in several explant sets. The cells showed a growth pattern reminiscent of fibroblasts. Growth was dependent on serum concentration. Cytoskeletal localization of actin and myosin showed prominent stress fibers. Ultrastructural studies showed many elongated cells with prominent stress fibers and some gap junctions and few adherens junctions. There were as well cells with fewer stress fibers containing prominent Golgi complex and dilated endoplasmic reticulum. In the multilayered superconfluent cultures, the former cells tended to be on the substratum of the dish or surface of the multilayered culture, whereas the latter was generally located within the layer of cells. Extracellular matrix was prominent in superconfluent cultures, often within the layers as well. Labeling of the cells with antibody HHF 35 (Tsukada T, Tippens D, Gordon D, Ross R, Gown AM: Am J Pathol 126:51, 1987), which recognizes smooth muscle cell actin, showed prominent staining of the elongated stress fiber-containing cells and much less in the secretory type cells. These studies show that interstitial mitral valve cells can be grown in culture and that either two different cell types or one cell type with two phenotypic expressions is present in culture.