The locomotory behaviour of small groups of fibroblasts

Abstract

Small groups of two to four fibroblasts at the periphery of outgrowths from cultured explants of chick embryo heart were isolated from their neighbours by sweeping away the nearby cells. The groups and the explants were left attached to the glass substrate, undisturbed. The behaviour of the isolated cells was photographically recorded during about 8 h of further culture. The cells of these groups dispersed, though not as a rule so far as to lose all mutual contacts, the dispersal being counterbalanced by the addition of new cells through mitosis. The accompanying changes in speed of locomotion, and the non-random nature of the spreading, are interpreted in terms of the effects of contacts between the cells. During the first four hours after isolation, but not thereafter, the cells of the groups on the average moved slowly away from the explant. Control groups in an intact outgrowth moved away faster and with no diminution of speed during the period of observation. The movement of the isolated groups can be partly accounted for by the tendency of cells to conserve for a time the direction of their movement before isolation; and by a strong reluctance of the isolated cells to move across the area, from which cells had been scraped away, that lay between the group and the explant. A new outgrowth of the residual sheet of cells still connected to the explant, however, advanced across this area, approaching and in most cases overhauling the isolated group. It is concluded that a chemotactic gradient around the explant is unlikely to play any significant part in the outward movement of fibroblasts from an explant in tissue culture. The cells of the isolated groups underwent an outburst of mitosis about 3 h after isolation. Mitoses in these relatively free cells are oriented in relation to the polarity of the cell before division. Locomotion of the daughter-cells tends to be faster than usual for at least 2 h after a cell divides.