Begin by placing the embryos dissected from the euthanized two to six-month-old pregnant female mouse in a cold complete medium with 1%fetal bovine serum. After removing the endometrial tissue, placenta, and yolk sack from the embryo under 5X magnification, dissect the cardiac progenitors from the embryonic heart region using forceps. Pull all the heart regions dissected from five mouse embryos in a 1.5 milliliter micro centrifuge tube and centrifuge them in a swinging bucket, pre-chilled to four degrees Celsius.
Remove the supernatant, and wash the tissue with one milliliter of tissue culture grade PBS. Centrifuge the tubes at 300G for one minute at four degrees celsius. Then, remove the supernatant, and repeat two washes with one milliliter PBS.
Once done, replace the PBS with 0.05%Trypsin-EDTA. Centrifuge and repeat two washes with 0.05%Trypsin-EDTA. To digest the tissue, add 50 microliters of 0.05%Trypsin-EDTA and heat for 10 minutes at 37 degrees Celsius.
Next, apply a gentle mechanical dissociation after five minutes by aspirating the suspension up and down using a wide-orifice filter tip. Inactivate the Trypsin digestion activity by adding 350 microliters of complete medium to the dissociated cells. Pass the cell suspension through a 40 micrometer cell strainer.
Prepare the cells for freezing by centrifuging the freshly-dissociated cell suspension. Carefully remove the supernatant and resuspend the pellet in one milliliter of chilled freezing medium. Transfer the cell suspension into a pre-cooled cryo vial, and place the cryo vial in a pre-cooled freezing container.
Place the freezing container at minus 80 degrees Celsius for four to eight hours before transferring it to liquid nitrogen for sequencing experiments.
