Tissue culture and cutaneous amyloidoses

Abstract

Tissue culture refers to the propagation of living tissue cells in special media conducive to their growth. Initially devised by Harrison 1 to study frog nerve fiber at the beginning of this century, tissue culture technology has now become an indispensable tool in almost every discipline of biomedical research. Dermatology is by no means an exception. Ljunggren 2 described the growth of skin in amniotic fluid early in 1898, and Lewis 3 observed human epidermal cells in tissue culture with phase-contrast microscopy in 1949. The development of modern methodology for keratinocyte culture did not start, however, until about two decades ago. In 1967, Briggaman et al. 4 prepared a viable suspension of postembryonic human epidermal cells and described their growth characteristics in cell culture. A cell line derived from mouse embryo fibroblasts by Todaro and Green, 5 3T3, was also utilized to promote growth of keratinocytes in culture. Rheinwald and Green 6 showed in 1975 that human epidermal keratinocytes could be cultured selectively on feeder layers of lethally irradiated 3T3 cells. Addition of hydrocortisone, cholera toxin, and epidermal growth factor 7 to the medium has made continued serial subculture possible over many cell generations. By altering the constituents of the medium, Peehl and Ham 8 further cultured keratinocytes from human foreskin successfully without a feeder layer. Various models proposed in recent years 9,10 for growing epidermal cells on a dermal equivalent at the air-liquid interface reflect attempts to more closely approximate physiological conditions in vitro.