• The Korean Journal of Zoology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.310-321
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• 1990

To establish the in vitro culture system and quantitation for chondrogenesis, and to investigate the relationship between cell aggregation and chondrogenesis, chick limb bud mesenchymal cells of Hamburger-Hamilton stage 23/24 were micromass cultured in various cell densities. The chondrogenesis was assayed based on checking the alcian blue-stained nodule numbers, the amount of alcian blue extraded, the change in cell numbers, the rate of [35 S] sulfate incorporation and expression of type II collagen. Mesenchymal cells plated with an initial density of high (1 x 107 cells/ml)- and intermediates (5. $\times$ 106 cells/ml)-density were differentiated into cartilage. On the other hand, the cells of low density (2 x 106 cells/mi, 5 $\times$ 105 cells/ml) of stage 23/24 cells and the stage 18/19 cells in three kinds of cell density did not differentiate into cartilage even though the cells formed an aggregated core at the center of cultured mass. From these results and others obtained in this study, it can be stated that the stage 23/24 mesenchymal cells are likely to pass over the aggregation step and have the potentiality to differentiate into chondrocytes. Thus chondrogenesis in vitro can be observed when mesenchymal cells are plated over the threshold density of 5 $\times$ 106 cells/ml. Hyaluronidase (HAase) activity was relatively constant throughout the culture, suggesting that the role of HAase may not be important for the cells of stage 23/24.