Early chick embryonic cells can form clones in agarose cultures.
Early chick embryonic cells prior to the formation of the primitive streak, have been cultured in a two-layer soft-agarose system. Single, primary cells when grown in this system were capable of producing colonies ranging in size from 30 to 100 cells. The plating efficiency varied between 1 and 5% and the colonies remained viable for about 2 weeks. We believe this is the first report of normal, non-passaged cells which show anchorage-independent growth properties by forming colonies in a standard agarose culture in the absence of additional factors. The importance of being able to use normal monoclonal embryonic cell populations in studying early developmental processes is also discussed.
D000818:Animals; D002452:Cell Count; D002455:Cell Division; D002642:Chick Embryo / Q000166:cytology*; D002999:Clone Cells / Q000166:cytology; D003470:Culture Media; D012685:Sepharose; D013997:Time Factors
D003470:Culture Media; D012685:Sepharose