[Effect of hypoxia on the growth and differentiation of NG108-15 cells]

The neuroblastoma x glioma hybrid clone NG108-15 which were derived by fusion of mouse neuroblastoma clone N18TG6 with rat glioma clone C6BU1 proliferates in the presence of fetal calf serum, but differentiates when intracellular cAMP concentration is made to increase by addition of dBcAMP to the cultural medium. After differentiation, the cells express many neural properties. In this experiment, by means of an automatic colorimetric microassay for quantifying the growth and Brilliant Cresyl Violett stain for revealing Nissl substance, the effect of hypoxia (2% O2) on the hybrid cells was investigated. The results obtained were as follows: (1) Hypoxia depressed proliferation of non-differentiated cells and induced death of differentiated ones. (2) Hypoxia inhibited differentiation, either non-differentiated or differentiating cells, in the direction to be a neuro-like cell: some cells became large flat with short processes and had no Nissl substance. Whether hypoxia would enable non-differentiated NG108-15 cells to differentiate in a direction to express more properties of glial cell is an interesting problem.