[Long- term organ culture of fetal Balb/C mouse heart and effects of electromagnetic fields and L-Arginine on the heart development]

ABSTRACT

There are few studies on the heart development in vitro conditions. The aim of this study was to determine the maintenance time and development of heart in vitro conditions compared with in vivo, and evaluate the effects of electromagnetic field and L-Arginine on the heart development. In this experimental study, hearts of 11- day mice fetuses were excised and cultured in Medium 199, supplemented with 15% newborn calf serum in CO[2] incubator in grid milipore membrane system. The culture period was 3 days at 37°C in an incubator with 5% CO[2] and 95% air. The isolated hearts were divided into sham group which received L-Arginine with no exposure to EMF, control group, and three experimental groups, including El which received EMF [50 HZ/7.83 mT for 30 minutes], E2 which received L-Arginine [350 mg/1] and E3 which received EMF and L-Arginine. Morphological and histological studies showed significant changes in experimental groups as compared with control groups. Length and diameter of heart, internal diameter of atrium and ventricle, length of interatrium septum and diameter of interventricular septum decreased significantly in experimental groups [p<0.001]. Number of red blood cells and heart rate showed significant increase in experimental groups [p<0.001]. Our findings suggest that electromagnetic field and L-Arginine have negative and disruptive effect on the mouse embryo heart development and have positive effect on the number of red blood cells and heart rate