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Proliferation of chick embryo neuroblasts grown in the presence of horse serum requires exogenous transferrin
Author(s) -
BarakatWalter I.,
Deloulme J. C.,
Sensenbrenner M.,
Labourdette G.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
journal of neuroscience research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.72
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1097-4547
pISSN - 0360-4012
DOI - 10.1002/jnr.490280311
Subject(s) - neuroblast , transferrin , embryo , biology , horse , in vitro , fetus , cell culture , endocrinology , microbiology and biotechnology , chemistry , biochemistry , neurogenesis , genetics , pregnancy , paleontology
We have previously shown that neuroblasts from cerebral hemispheres of 6‐day‐old chick embryos are able to proliferate when grown in the presence of fetal calf serum. We report here that in the presence of horse serum alone the proliferative rate of neuroblasts is strongly reduced. A high proliferative rate is restored upon the addition of bovine transferrin and to a lesser extent with added FeSO 4 or hemin. These findings suggest that the transferrin of horse serum cannot be used by chick neuroblasts in vitro, while bovine transferrin exogenously added is active in promoting cell proliferation. We propose that the stimulatory activity of the fetal calf serum is due to bovine transferrin, since when this serum is fractionated by gel filtration, the fractions that stimulate the proliferation of neuroblasts grown in the presence of horse serum are located in the molecular weight area of transferrin, and they do contain transferrin as seen by immunoblotting with a specific anti‐transferrin antibody.