Developmental changes in the responses of rat chromaffin cells to neuronotrophic and neurite-promoting factors

This study describes the survival and neurite outgrowth behaviors of cultured adrenal medullary (chromaffin) cells obtained from postnatal rats 1 day (D1) to 100 days (D100) old in response to nerve growth factor (NGF), chick eye ciliary neuronotrophic factor (CNTF), and laminin. In the absence of trophic factors the 4-day survival of cultured chromaffin cells (relative to the number of cells attached at 2 hr) increased from one-third of the cells at D1 to 40% at D8 and 90-100% at D16 and older stages. At saturating concentrations NGF increased cell survival at D8 by 90%, but failed to support all chromaffin cells present at 2 hr. In contrast, CNTF supported the survival of all cells at D8. At D1 NGF and CNTF had only a very small effect on survival during the 4-day culture period, although both factors clearly enhanced the numbers of surviving cells after 8 days. Either NGF or CNTF also elicited neurite outgrowth from rat chromaffin cells, which amounted to approximately 15-20% at D1 and D8 and subsequently decreased to about 5-8% at D30 and virtually zero at D100. At this last age both factors applied together clearly elicited neurites. Such a potentiating effect of NGF and CNTF was also seen at earlier postnatal ages. Laminin did not affect neurite growth at D30 in the absence of trophic factors, as already described for D8 rat chromaffin cells. In the presence of NGF, however, it increased neurite length and branching during a 4-day culture period and even enhanced neurite recruitment at later culture times. These data suggest that rat chromaffin cells undergo age-related changes in their responses to NGF and CNTF and that laminin modulates their neurite outgrowth behaviors in the presence of trophic factors.