Studies on intercellular adhesion. II. Promoting effect of serum and proteins on adhesion of neural retina cells to isotypic aggregates.

The quantitative assay described in the preceding paper (Pessac et al., '77) was used to study the effects of serum and various proteins on isotypic adhesion of chick embryo neural retina cells. Fetal bovine, chicken, horse, rabbit and human sera promoted cell adhesion to the same extent. The same sera also enhanced isotypic adhesion of cells from other organs showing that the cell adhesion promoting activity of sera was not organ specific. Neural retina (NR) cell collection in serum supplemented medium was not modified by protein synthesis or metabolic inhibitors and was temperature dependent with a maximum at 38 degrees C. The higher temperature does not seem to be required for repair of the cell surface after dissociation, but for the process of adhesion itself. Various serum fractions and egg albumin showed a cell adhesion promoting activity similar to that of sera.