Transdetermination and transdifferentiation of neural retinal cells into lens in cell culture

Two aspects of transdifferentiation of avian neural retina (NR) cells into lens in cell culture were discussed. First, by means of the transfer experiments of NR cells pre-cultivated in spreading cultures (SpC) longer than 10 days into aggregation cultures (AgC), it was shown that NR cells are "transdetermined" into lens direction, before the phenotypic expression of lens in cells at such earlier stages of SpC. In the second part of this article, we showed that NR-cells which have already expressed some neuronal phenotypes can transdifferentiate into lens. This statement is based upon the results of chimeric cultures consisting of neuronal cell fraction separated from 10-day SpC of quail NR and of the epithelial cell fraction of SpC of chick NR. Lens cells formed in such chimeric cultures were mainly of quail origin.