An on-line and continuous technique based on electric cell substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) was developed for measuring the concentration and time response function of fibroblastic V79 cells exposed to toxicants. Mercury chloride (HgCl(2)), cadmium chloride (CdCl(2)), benzalkonium chloride (BAK), sodium arsenate (Na(2)HAsO(4)), and trinitrobenzene (TNB) were used as five test models. The firs...

We have compared the molecular specificities of the adhesive interactions of melanoma and fibroblastic cells with fibronectin. Several striking differences were found in the sensitivity of the two cell types to inhibition by a series of synthetic peptides modeled on the Arg-Gly-Asp-Ser (RGDS) tetrapeptide adhesion signal. Further evidence for differences between the melanoma and fibroblastic ce...

The central portions of the cornea of adult rabbits were injured with a cryocautery and the rate of endothelial healing was compared between untreated and topical dexamethasone-treated corneas. Regenerating cells were labeled with daily injections of tritiated thymidine until the fifth day, when healing occurred. Control eyes showed 90 per cent label, but the number of labeled cells was less in...

The addition of exogenous hepatocyte growth factor (HGF)/scatter factor (SF) to MDCK epithelial cells results in fibroblastic morphology and cell motility. We generated HGF/SF producing MDCK cells by transfection with an expression plasmid containing human HGF/SF cDNA. Production of HGF/SF by these cells induced a change from an epithelial to a fibroblastic morphology and increased cell motilit...

Adipocyte sizes from adipose tissue of mature animals form a bimodal distribution, thus reporting mean cell size is misleading. The objectives of this study were to develop a robust method for testing bimodality of porcine adipocytes, describe the size distribution with an informative metric, and statistically test hypertrophy and appearance of new small adipocytes, possibly resulting from hype...