The purpose of this study was to determine whether thyroid hormone could directly affect the phenotypic expression of two isozymic systems [lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and myosin] and the energy transducing potential of cultured neonatal heart cells. In addition we determined if these biochemical systems developed in culture as they normally do during in vivo post-natal development. Cells were maintained for 14 days in culture medium containing 10% horse serum and Earle's salts. Experimental cultures were supplemented with 10 nmol/l 3,3′,5-triiodo-L-thyronine (T3). Hearts used to study in vivo development were excised from rats at the ages of 2 and 14 days post-natal to correspond with the time of isolating and harvesting the cultured heart cells, respectively. Adult hearts were used to represent the final developmental stage. Cultured cardiomyocytes without T3 administered to the culture medium showed no change in the isozymic profiles (myosin and LDH) or in metabolic potential during the 2 week culture period. The T3 treated cultures showed a complete shift to the V₁ myosin isozyme. The glycolytic and aerobic metabolic potential [i.e., phosphofructokinase (PFK) and citrate synthase (CS) activities] and the LDH isozyme distribution were unaltered by T3 treatment. During in vivo development a shift toward the V₁ myosin and H-LDH isozymes along with an increase in aerobic metabolism occurred in the rat heart. These findings indicate that the development of these selected biochemical systems in cultured cardiac myocytes does not result from an intrinsic myogenetic program and thus must be regulated in vivo by epigenetic factor (s). These results show that T₃ has the potential to the prime determinant of the phenotypic expression of the myosin isoforms, but does not have the potential to be the sole determinant for the expression of the LDH isozymes or the glycolytic (PFK) and aerobic (CS) capacities of cardiac muscle cells.