1.Cardiac adrenoreceptors: model genes
                           
   Receptor signalling in the healthy and in the failling heart
   Limbird, Lee E. and Vaughan, Douglas E. (1999) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 96, 7125-7127
                                                       
   Copyright ©1999 by the National Academy of Sciences
   2. Culture of animal cells 
        Cells are dispersed from tissues 
        and are cultured in vitro. Most 
        primary cells do not grow but 
        can be kept in nutrient media for 
        days to weeks.
  Cells in culture. (A) Phase-contrast 
  micrograph of fibroblasts in culture. (B) 
  Micrograph of myoblasts in culture shows 
  cells fusing to form multinucleate muscle 
  cells. (C) Oligodendrocyte precursor cells in 
  culture. (A, courtesy of Daniel Zicha; B, 
  courtesy of Rosalind Zalin; C, from D.G. Tang 
  et al., J. Cell Biol. 148:971   984, 2000) 
                           
       2.Cultured primary cells: heart cells
     Cultured cells can be used to study the different effects of 
     “Growth stimuli” such as adrenergic agonists. Heart cells express all 3 Beta 
     adrenergic receptor. To study individual receptors, heterologous cells are 
     often used.
                           
                                   Cannot study individual
                                   βARs in cultured heart
                                   cells. Use heterologous
                                   cells.
  Iso (β-AR agonist) induces cardiomyocyte apoptosis. Cardiac myocytes were 
  incubated for 48 h with the indicated concentrations of Iso (0.1-50 µM) or 1 µM 
  ionomycin. The percentage of TUNEL-positive cardiomyocytes is presented as the 
  average ± S.E. from three independent experiments. *, p < 0.05 versus control. 
                               J Biol Chem. 2000 Nov 3;275(44):34528-33