EFFECTS OF CULTURE MEDIA ON THE "FOREIGN" DIFFERENTIATION OF LENS AND PIGMENT CELLS FROM NEURAL RETINA IN VITRO

Neural retinal cells of 3.5-day-old quail embryos were cultured as a monolayer to examine their potentials for differentiation in vitro. The "foreign" differentiation into lentoid and pigment cells was much affected by the choice of medium (Eagle's MEM and Ham's F-12); in Eagle's MEM, neural retinal cells differentiated extensively into lentoid bodies and pigment cells, as previously reported in cultures of chick neural retinal cells, while in Ham's F-12, though the cells proliferated as well as in Eagle's MEM, the "foreign" differentiation is inhibited. When primary cultures were transferred to secondary cultures, the occurrence of "foreign" differentiation did not depend on the medium used for the primary culturing, but wholly on the medium used for secondary cultures. This difference in differentiation in two different media was quantitatively substantiated by measuring the amounts of α-, δ-crystallins and melanins of cultured cells.