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Updated: Oct 6, 2025

Isolation and Identification of Extravascular Immune Cells of the Heart
Published on: August 23, 2018
Organized Chaos: Deciphering Immune Cell Heterogeneity's Role in Inflammation in the Heart
Alexa Corker1, Lily S Neff1, Philip Broughton1
1Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, USA.
Abstract:
During homeostasis, immune cells perform daily housekeeping functions to maintain heart health by acting as sentinels for tissue damage and foreign particles. Resident immune cells compose 5% of the cellular population in healthy human ventricular tissue. In response to injury, there is an increase in inflammation within the heart due to the influx of immune cells. Some of the most common immune cells recruited to the heart are macrophages, dendritic cells, neutrophils, and T-cells. In this review, we will discuss what is known about cardiac immune cell heterogeneity during homeostasis, how these cell populations change in response to a pathology such as myocardial infarction or pressure overload, and what stimuli are regulating these processes. In addition, we will summarize technologies used to evaluate cell heterogeneity in models of cardiovascular disease.
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