Contraction rate of rat cardiac cells in culture: Responses to prolonged perfusion

Abstract

Rat cardiac muscle cells In culture were subjected to perfusion under constant conditions for periods of 8–16 hours. Capillary tubes were used as perfusion chambers to avoid the disadvantages for kinetic studies inherent in most other perfusion chambers. The contraction rates of these cells displayed a temporal response to perfusion which correlated with the age of the cells in culture. After prolonged perfusion with fresh medium, a peaked response in the contraction rate was observed when the perfusion medium was abruptly changed to medium that had been used to support the growth of a dense culture of cardiac cells for 5 days (conditioned medium).