Control of enzyme activity levels by serum and hydrocortisone in neonatal rat heart cells cultured in serum-free medium.

A serum-free, hormone-supplemented medium (SFHM) for maintaining neonatal rat heart cells in culture has been developed in this laboratory (Mohamed et al., 1983). Morphological assessment of heart cells grown in SFHM show it to be similar to commonly used serum-supplemented media. To quantitatively compare cell behavior in SFHM with serum-supplemented media, the activities of ten regulatory enzymes which represent four metabolic pathways were studied in heart cells cultured in SFHM. The enzyme activities which were measured included hexokinase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase, phosphofructokinase, pyruvate kinase, NAD+-linked sn-glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, malate dehydrogenase, NAD+-linked isocitrate dehydrogenase, NADH-cytochrome c reductase, and succinic cytochrome c reductase. Rat heart cells maintained in culture on SFHM are not only qualitatively and quantitatively similar to those maintained in serum-supplemented medium but also provide a more suitable model system for metabolic studies of neonatal cardiac tissue for several reasons: 1) many enzyme activities that may represent dedifferentiation are elevated by serum; 2) NAD-linked glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase activity in cells maintained on SFHM is similar to the in vivo activity; 3) cells beat at or near the in vivo frequency and can be maintained 3 months on SFHM; 4) the SFHM is chemically defined and thus can be completely manipulated by the investigator. The effects of three concentrations of hydrocortisone (HC) (5,000 ng/ml, 50 micrograms/ml, 0 ng/ml) on heart cells cultured in SFHM supported our previous conclusion that function (beating) and growth (protein accumulation) are inversely related in cultured neonatal rat heart cells.