Effect of peptides on animal cells in culture: I. Maintenance of beating heart cells

Abstract

Chick embryo heart cells grown as organ cultures or monolayer cultures maintained beating for varying periods of time in media supplemented with Bacto-Peptone or Proteose Peptone but in the absence of serum. Electron micrographs of these cultures suggested a “normal ultrastructure”, and initial fractionation studies indicated that the factor(s) in either Bacto-Peptone or Proteose Peptone which contributed to the maintenance of beating could be partially purified by gel filtration. Serum, routinely used in tissue culture studies, is not only complex but the response of cells to different lots of serum has been reported to vary significantly [4, 8, 21, 23, 24]. These problems might be resolved by identifying the active component(s) of serum or by substituting less complex materials for the serum component. The latter has been reported by Amborski & Moskowitz [1], and by Amborski et al. [2]. These results suggested that peptides might be used in the place of serum in studies on the growth and development of primary cultures. This report describes the effects of similar peptides on primary cell cultures derived from embryonic chick hearts cultivated under different conditions; in organ culture, in aggregate culture and in monolayer culture.