Epicardial slices: an innovative 3D organotypic model to study epicardial cell physiology and activation.

"data availability all raw data images and analyses supporting the findings of this study are available through the online repository zenodo (10 5281/zenodo 5792892) 51 . data availability all raw data images and analyses supporting the findings of this study are available through the online repository zenodo"

"Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests."

"We thank Drs L Dixton, A Reis, and M Henstock from the Pirbright Institute (Pirbright, UK) and the personnel at Newman Abattoir (Farnborough, UK) for their support in procuring the animal tissues. Prof John McVey and the Department of Biochemical Sciences at the University of Surrey, especially the technical team, for their continuing support. This work was supported by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research (grant numbers: NC/R001006/1 and NC/T001216/1). R.S.M. is supported by the Doctoral College studentship award (University of Surrey), R.D.J. by the British Heart Foundation (grant number: FS/17/33/32931), and C.C. by the European Research Council (grant reference: StG EnBioN 759577)."