Astroglial proliferation and phenotype are modulated by neuronal plasma membrane.
The rate of proliferation of rat astroglia cultured in a serum-free medium, estimated by tritiated thymidine radioautography, was diminished by more than 50% by addition of rat central nervous system axolemmal fragments to the culture medium. Addition of the axolemmal fragments also induced a phenotypic alteration of the cultured astroglia, from cells of irregular shape containing a fine meshwork of intracytoplasmic glial fibrils to star-shaped cells with thicker, cable-like glial fibrils.
D000818:Animals; D001253:Astrocytes / Q000502:physiology*; D001369:Axons / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D002450:Cell Communication; D002455:Cell Division; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000502:physiology; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D003337:Corpus Callosum; D005260:Female; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains