2017 Volume 55Annual Issue 5AM-Abstract Pages 432
Contractile performance of cardiac tissue reconstructed in vitro is markedly lower than that of in vivo tissue. In spite that polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) play crucial roles in cardiomyocyte contraction, conventional culture medium contains little lipids. In the present study, we supplemented arachidonic (AA) or docosahexaenoic (DHA) acid in medium in which cardiomyocytes harvested from fetal rats were cultured, and found that contractile performance in AA- or DHA-supplemented cardiomyocytes was higher than that in non-supplemented cells. Supplemented PUFA content in cardiomyocytes in culture was dose-dependent, and the maximum contraction performance was obtained when 50 μM AA or 20 μM DHA was supplemented. With that concentration of AA or DHA, the supplemented PUFA content was close to that of myocardium in neonatal rats. The results suggest that proper supplementation of AA and DHA may be important to increase contractile performance in cultured cardiomyocytes.
