The Culture of Small Aggregates of Amphibian Embryonic Cells in vitro
A Common procedure in amphibian embryology has been to remove portions from embryos and culture these under conditions in which the large numbers of cells retain a close-knit association, favourable to the differentiation of primitive organs in the explant. It has not, in general, been the aim to employ the primary explant as a source of a two-dimensional outgrowth of cells on the substrate, as in typical cell culture procedures. Because of their inherent migratory tendencies, however, outgrowths of pigment cells are readily obtained from explants of the amphibian neural crest, and these have stimulated the interest of a number of investigators (see Wilde, 1961). Holtfreter (1938, 1946) and Finnegan (1953) have also observed the migration of cells from explants of Urodele embryos. Several investigators have employed cell cultures as opposed to organ type cultures in induction studies, Niu & Twitty (1953), Niu (1958), Barth & Barth (1959) and Becker, Tiedemann & Tiedemann (1959).