Purification of ovine somatotrophs using a combination of density gradient centrifugation and short-term culture

Freshly dispersed or cultured (18 h) ovine anterior pituitary cells were fractionated on 55% sigmoidal Percoll gradients. This resulted in the separation of two sub-populations of cells at densities of 1.075 g/ml (peak I) and 1.055 g/ml (peak II). Radioimmunoassay of fractions from a gradient on which cells were separated before culture showed the profiles of GH and prolactin to be virtually superimposable. After culture, however, the lactotroph population exhibited an apparent shift in its density profile, the lighter population increasing at the expense of the denser one. Immunocytochemistry of the cells remaining in the denser peak (peak I) showed that it consisted of about 65% somatotrophs which was approximately a three-fold enrichment over the proportion of somatotrophs present in the original cell preparation (24%). Refractionation studies indicated that the change in the density profile of the lactotrophs was due to an actual reduction in their density rather than a loss of viability of the denser sub-population. Secretion data showed the purified somatotrophs to be more responsive than the crude cell preparation to the regulatory factors, GH-releasing hormone and somatostatin. This enriched cell population should prove useful in the detailed study of GH secretion.