Method for adult cardiomyocyte long-term viability monitoring using confocal microscopy techniques

Freshly isolated myocytes lose their viability and functionality very early, from single hours to single days. So their viability is usually tested before the experiments or monitored continuously in periodic time intervals. But simple observations using viability kits (e. g. LIVE / DEAD Cell Imaging Kit, Life Technologies) for this purpose are not sufficient because of Calcein photobleaching and furthermore repeated testing is not possible. In this paper we tested advanced methods based on Calcium degradation and fluorescence lifetime measurement or cardiomyocyte shape properties calculations.