Differentiation of a bipotential glial progenitor cell in single cell microculture

摘要: Although it is known that most cells of the vertebrate central nervous system (CNS) are derived from neuroepithelial neural tube (reviewed in ref. 1), factors determining whether an individual cell develops into a particular type neurone or glial remain unknown. A promising model for studying this problem bipotential progenitor developing rat optic nerve; differentiates astrocyte (a type-2 astrocyte2) if cultured 10% fetal calf serum (FCS) and oligodendrocyte serum-free medium3. As oligodendrocyte–type-2 (0-2A) can differentiate along either pathway neurone-free cultures2,4, living axons clearly not required its differentiation, at least vitro. However, studies on 0-2A were carried out bulk cultures nerve, so was possible other cell–cell interactions differentiation culture. We show here astrocytes oligodendrocytes when grown as isolated microculture, indicating vitro does require signals CNS cells, apart provided by components culture medium. also single without dividing, supporting our previous using 3H-thymidine3 suggesting DNA replication these to choose between two programmes.