Preparation of a Non-Cardiomyocyte Cell Suspension for Single-Cell RNA Sequencing from a Post-Myocardial Infarction Adult Mouse Heart

Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the most common cardiovascular diseases, with increasing mortality worldwide. Non-cardiomyocytes account for more than half of the total cardiac cell population, and they contribute to adaptive compensations upon myocardial injury, including inflammatory responses, tissue repair, and scar formation. To study the post-MI cardiac microenvironment, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is widely used to identify different cardiac cell types and intercellular communications. Among the procedures of scRNA-seq sample preparation, preparing the cell suspension is one of the most critical steps, because the cell viability can affect the quality of the scRNA-seq results. Therefore, we designed an experimental protocol for preparing a non-cardiomyocyte cell suspension from post-MI mouse hearts with an extra focus on improving the cell viability by choosing mild digestive enzymes, controlling the digestion time, and applying fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). Finally, we isolated CD45⁺ cells from the non-cardiomyocyte cell suspension obtained through this protocol, and then we performed scRNA-seq.