Development of new intercellular contacts between adult cardiac myocytes in culture

On serum precoated tissue culture dishes, isolated ventricular myocytes attach firmly during 4 hours of incubation. Since in this monoculture cells do not divide and show only minimal signs of cytoplasmic spreading, individual cells mostly lie isolated from others. However, when occasionally two cells attach in close vicinity, new cell-cell contact structures are formed already during the first hours in culture. The de-novo formation of these communications is demonstrated by the finding that they often connect cells in an end-to-side manner that does not occur in vivo.