The dependency of collagen fibrillogenesis in vitro on fibroblast culture conditions. Fibroblasts in mono- and multi-layers.
The extracellular matrix produced by monolayer and tridimensional cultures of fibroblasts was investigated using histochemical and ultrastructural methods. In monolayer cultures, collagen and proteoglycans produced by fibroblasts could not be organized into morphologically recognizable structures. Tridimensional fibroblast cultures produced a well organized matrix with periodic, parallel ordered collagen fibrils of 50 nm diameter, criss-crossed by alcianophylic segments 6-10 nm thick in diameter and 100-300 nm in length, parallel to each other, perpendicular to the collagen fibrils and spaced 67 nm from each other. Some alcianophylic segments lay perpendicular to the above described ones, with maximum lengths of 65-70 nm. Alcianophylic segments are the ultrastructural evidence of structural proteoglycans. These observations suggest that the culture conditions influence the collagen and proteoglycans secretion, so that the final organization of the matrix results quite different.
Dell'Orbo
C
C
Department of Cytomorphology, University of Cagliari, Italy.
Gioglio
L
L
Quacci
D
D
Ruggeri
A
A
D000423:Alcian Blue; D000818:Animals; D002478:Cells, Cultured / Q000648:ultrastructure; D002642:Chick Embryo; D003094:Collagen / Q000032:analysis / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005109:Extracellular Matrix / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D006651:Histocytochemistry; D066298:In Vitro Techniques
D003094:Collagen; D000423:Alcian Blue