Tissue culture evidence on the control of the switch from contact inhibition of cell movement to overlapping behavior in annual fish embryos of nothobranchius korthausae

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AbstractDeep blastomeres of annual fish embryos exhibit contact inhibition of cell movement during epiboly and early dispersed stages before returning to self‐cohering and overlapping behavior. Deep blastomeres were dissociated from embryos of several different ages and cultured in hanging drops and in sitting drops. In every culture the cells rapidly reaggregated, irrespective of whether the cells were aggregated or dispersed in the living embryo. In sitting‐drop cultures, some cells subsequently flattened onto the plastic surface and assumed a fibroblastic shape. These results indicate that the contact inhibition and the overlapping behavior exhibited by deep blastomeres in vivo depend upon interactions of these cells with their embryonic environment, probably with the cell layers on which they are moving.