Isolation and Purification of Satellite Cells from Young Rats by Percoll Density Gradient Centrifugation.

Satellite cells (SCs) are myogenic stem cells that play an important role in skeletal muscle regeneration and hypertrophy. Primary cultures of SCs are useful to analyze cell functions; however, it is difficult to obtain highly pure SCs from young rats with the conventional procedures. The purpose of this study is to establish a purification method for SC isolation from young rats and quantitatively evaluate the purification procedure employing Percoll, a common research tool to purify cells. We elucidated the purity of SCs collected by Percoll density gradient centrifugation using real-time RT-qPCR and immunocytochemistry for desmin. Percoll treatment increased the purity of SCs isolated from young rats to nearly 90%, which was comparable to that achieved with the conventional method using middle-aged rats.