FIG. 1.

Isolation of cardiac stem cells (CSCs) using three different protocols. (A) Schematic diagram of our laboratory isolation protocol. After mincing, the transferred tissues were divided into two groups. One group was cultured as explants and the second group was enzymatically treated to generate a cell suspension. Digested tissues were either sorted by a MACS system or diluted and cultured at a 1 cell/well density to generate clones. Cultured cells that grew in the wells and generated colonies were pooled together and passaged into a larger plate after colony generation. (B) c-KIT⁺ cells were sorted by the MACS system at passage 2. (C) CSCs were generated from one cell at passage 2. (D) Human cultured explants on fibronectin coated plates after 10–14 days. A monolayer of fibroblast cells grew from the explants and a number of bright phase cells migrated over the fibroblast cells. (E) Human cultured explants at a higher magnification as indicated by inset in D. (F) Cardio-spheres derived from human explants on poly D-lysine coated plates. (G) Generated cardio-spheres from explants plated on fibronectin-coated plate at day 4. Scale bar=200 μm. Color images available online at www.liebertpub.com/scd