title: Scleral fibroblasts of the chick embryo differentiate into chondrocytes in soft-agar culture.
abstract: Scleral fibroblasts, perichondrial cells of the scleral layer of the 12-day chick embryo, always manifest a fibroblastic morphology in monolayer culture. In soft-agar culture, these cells produce two types of colonies. One type of colony, F-type, consists of adherent fibroblastic cells, and the other, C-type, is composed of scattered round chondrocytic cells. Cells of the C-type colony are surrounded by a halo of extracellular matrix, positive with Alcian blue and with an antibody to cartilage-specific proteoglycan. When a single fibroblast clone in monolayer, derived from a single scleral fibroblast, is subcultured into soft agar, the cells give rise to both C-type and F-type colonies. Further, it was found that cells constituting F-type colonies eventually separate and become spherical, and the F-type colony converts to a C-type colony (C-type conversion). In regard to the C-type convertibility, the primary fibroblast clones were divided into four categories, early time differentiating, middle-time differentiating, late-time differentiating and nondifferentiating. This suggests that the scleral perichondrial layer of the 12-day chick embryo is composed of a variety of cells with different chondrogenic potentialities maintained in each individual cell.
authors.affiliation: Cell and Developmental Biology Laboratory, Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University, Japan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yagi
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ohya
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kimata
mesh_terms: D000362:Agar; D000423:Alcian Blue; D000818:Animals; D002356:Cartilage / Q000166:cytology*; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002642:Chick Embryo; D002999:Clone Cells / Q000166:cytology; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000166:cytology*; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D012590:Sclera / Q000166:cytology*; D013194:Staining and Labeling; D014048:Tolonium Chloride
chemical_list: D014048:Tolonium Chloride; D000362:Agar; D000423:Alcian Blue