Isolation of exophers from cardiomyocyte-reporter mouse strains by fluorescence-activated cell sorting

Abstract

Cardiac exophers are membrane-bound extracellular vesicles released by cardiomyocytes with varied content and an average diameter of 3.5 μm. Here, we provide a detailed protocol to enable the identification and purification of cardiomyocyte-derived exophers by using fluorescence-activated cell sorting for downstream cellular and molecular analysis. This protocol requires the use of mouse strains expressing fluorescent proteins in cardiomyocytes.