Journal of Neuroscience, Vol 9, 63-69, Copyright © 1989 by Society for Neuroscience
Plasticity of process-bearing glial cell cultures from neonatal rat cerebral cortical tissue
CA Ingraham and KD McCarthy
Neurobiology Curriculum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27514.
The factors and cellular interactions that influence the commitment of
cells to specific neural lineages are not well understood. We have used
cultured non-neuronal process-bearing (PB) cells from neonatal rat cerebral
cortices as a model to assess the influence of various culture conditions
on the determination of cells as either astroglia or oligodendroglia.
Increasing postseparation plating density was significantly associated (p
less than 0.001) with decreasing percentages of glial fibrillary acidic
protein (GFAP+) cells, increasing percentages of galactocerebroside (GC+)
cells, and increasing percentages of nonstained cells. As the fetal calf
serum content of growth medium was increased, the percentage of GFAP+ cells
increased, and as the serum content was decreased, the percentage of GC+
cells increased. Evidence of minimal cell proliferation and the observation
of PB cells that coexpressed GFAP and GC supported the conclusion that PB
cells switched their phenotypic expression from GFAP+ in serum to GC+ in
serum-free medium. PB cells exhibited plasticity in their phenotypic
expression as cells grown for 9 d in serum-free medium were still
responsive to the effects of serum, while cells grown for 6 d in serum were
refractory to serum withdrawal. This research has demonstrated the
plasticity of PB cells separated from polygonal astroglia as they expressed
GFAP in the presence of serum and GC in serum-free medium.