Isolation of Lymphatic Muscle Cells (LMCs ) from Rat Mesentery.

Lymphatic muscle cells (LMCs), with unique characteristics resembling a combination of both cardiac and smooth muscle cells, play an essential role in the spontaneous contraction of the lymphatic vessels to pump fluid forward. However, our understanding of the more detailed molecular phenotypes of LMCs is limited. Here, we described a method to isolate the LMCs from rat mesentery and then culture the cells in vitro, which will serve a lot more molecular biology study of LMCs and significantly improve our knowledge about the unique characteristics of LMCs.