Microinjection of antibodies and expression vectors into living myocardial cells. Development of a novel approach to identify candidate genes that regulate cardiac growth and hypertrophy.

Abstract

To the best of our knowledge, this study provides the first description of the efficient microinjection of neonatal cardiac muscle cells with maintenance of long-term cell viability. The microinjection technique is now a viable approach to examine cause-and-effect relations between specific gene products and any defined feature or response of cardiac myocytes that can be assayed at a single-cell level.