The development of monoamine oxidase (MAO) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) in reaggregation cultures of fetal rat brain cells was compared with that of enzymatic markers for glial and neuronal cells. Only MAO-A was detected in the cultures during the first week, but, during the following three weeks, the activity of MAO-B increased more rapidly than that of MAO-A. The ratio MAO-A/MAO-B in four-week aggregates was close to that found in the adult rat brain. The activity of ALDH started to increase rapidly after 15 days, and the developmental pattern was intermediate to those of the glial and neuronal markers. The activity after four weeks was close to that found in the adult rat brain. Epidermal growth factor (EGF) caused a slight decrease in the activities of the low-Km ALDH (after four weeks) and the neuronal marker, choline acetyltransferase (after two weeks), whereas the other markers were not affected. By contrast, the activities of MAO-A and MAO-B were greatly increased during almost the entire culture period. It is suggested that this effect of EGF was the result of increased mitotic activity and/or biochemical differentiation of other cell types present in the cell aggregates, e.g. capillary endothelial cells.
