We may not immediately think of our heart as a collection of individual cells. But it is the complex interaction of numerous cell types that give the heart its ability to pump blood.
Some cells form heart connective tissue, other cells grow into heart valves.
And muscle cells give the heart its ability to beat and pump blood throughout the body. You can dissolve an embryonic heart into its individual cell types with trypsin, an enzyme that destroys the protein glue between the cells. The cells shown here are from the chick embryo. Cell physiologists can measure how these ion channels work using a technique called the patch clamp . Beating in Unison As long as the beating cells do not touch one another, their beats are independent - some are faster, some are slower.