Differences in Glycolysis Between Fetal and Non-fetal Fibroblast Cell Lines

Abstract

WALLACE W. MCCRORY (New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center, New York, N.Y.): The demonstration of a difference in channeling of glucose metabolism into the hexose-monophosphate shunt and the Krebs-TCA pathway in fetal and adult cells in tissue culture is in agreement with similar findings of Dr. E. SCHUBERT in the Department at Cornell. Dr. SCHUBERT'S studies were done on kidney tissue in differing periods from fetal life to maturity in the rat. The changes correlate with the growth program of the organ with maturation. The activity of the hexose-monophosphate shunt is highest in proliferating cells and falls to adult values when growth by hyperplasia ceases (about 40 days after birth). What I find especially interesting is your data showing fetal cells continue to demonstrate this metabolic pattern in tissue culture if I understood your comments. Did you find that fetal cells remained ‘fetal’ in this regard in serial tissue culture?Miss CONDON: Yes.LEONARD PINSKY (Lady Davis Institute, Montreal, Que.): Miss CONDON and her associates have shown us once again that cultured human fibroblasts are not the dedifferentiated masses they were thought to be a few years ago. In other words, the age of the donor and, perhaps, the anatomic site of the parental tissue may confer heritable properties on the cell strain developed.I wonder if the speaker has had any experience with newborn fibroblasts. I have the feeling that fibroblasts derived from newborns, and particularly newborn foreskin, have many of the properties she has described for her fetal strains. It would be important to know if this is true because one frequently sees cell strains derived from human foreskin used as controls in studies dealing with fibroblasts cultured from adult skin.Miss CONDON: We have no experience with foreskin from newborns.