Abstract

New born rat heart cells were dissociated using trypsin and/or collagenase to elucidate the dissociation efficiency of these two enzymes. And the effect of dimethyl sulfoxide during and immediately after cell dissociation was also investigated to clarify the so-called protective activity of dimethyl sulfoxide on cell performance. The results can be summarized as follows. 1. Cold trypsin 18 hours pretreatment followed by warm collagenase treatment resulted best cell viability and cell yield. 2. Single warm trypsin treatment gave the poorest result. 3. Dimethyl sulfoxide did not seem to play any protective role during or immediately after rat heart cell dissociation. It had very damaging effect on rat heart cells.