Aortic Valve Interstitial Cells: An Evaluation of Cell Viability and Cell Phenotype over Time
Massimo Cimini BSc, Kem A. Rogers PhD, Derek R. Boughner MD

In general, human autopsy samples are harvested after vascular ischemia. Porcine hearts were used to evaluate if, and how, cell number, viability and phenotype were changed in isolation experiments at 0, 6, 24, 48, 72, 96 and 120 h post mortem. Although the number of cells isolated decreased significantly over all time points, cell viability remained unaffected up to and including 120 h as compared with controls. The expression of smooth muscle a-actin, prolyl-4-hydroxylase and chondroitin sulfate also remained unchanged over the time course of the experiment. These results suggest that human autopsy samples might be used to isolate representative cell types for use in the in-vitro study of heart valve disease.