A novel method to obtain rat aortic media for primary culture of rat aortic smooth muscle cells.

An efficient and simple method to obtain aortic media for primary culture of rat vascular smooth muscle cells (RVSMCs) is developed. The main steps to obtain aortic media include isolation of rat aortic artery, removal of the fat tissue and branches, separation of longitudinal cutting edge, and peeling off the adventitia. Then, aortic media was used to obtain RVSMCs by our tissue explants method and the enzyme digestion method. The removal efficiency of the intima and adventitia was confirmed by hematoxylin-eosin and immunohistochemical staining. Morphology and immunofluorescent staining were used to identify cells and cell purity. RVSMCs at the 3rd and 8th passages were isolated by our tissue explants method; the enzyme digestion method and the traditional tissue explants method were compared respectively. Western blotting and gel contraction assay were used to investigate the phenotype and contraction ability of RVSMCs obtained by the different methods. Compared with the other methods, RVSMCs isolated by our method showed higher purity and demonstrated "contractile" phenotype with retained contraction ability for more passages. And the aortic media obtained showed no visible damage with few endothelial cells and fibroblasts remained. An efficient and simple method was established to obtain rat aortic media for primary culture of RVSMCs with high purity, "contractile" phenotype characteristics, and more stable during subculturing.