ANALYSIS OF HETEROGENEITY OF HUMAN KERATINOCYTES INTERACTING WITH IMMOBILIZED FIBRONECTIN AND
COLLAGENES I AND IV TYPES
O. G. Spichkina,1 G. P. Pinaev, Yu. P. Petrov
Institute Cytology RAS, St. Petersburg;
1 e-mail: olga_spichkina@mail.ru
The concept that stem cells form an independent subpopulations of somatic cells assumes the heterogeneity of cellular populations in adult tissues.
As skin keratinocytes have natural affinity to extracellular matrix proteins, we made an attempt to reveal subpopulations of these cells depending on the time
of their adhesion to substrates of collagen I and IV types and fibronectin. After selection for 10, 20 and 30 min the keratinocytes were cultivated for 24 h.
The area of cell projection on a substrate and the spreading coefficient were measured (Kuzminykh, Petrov, 2004; Petrov et al., 2007). In 24 h statistically
reliable morphological differences between the cells depending on the substratum were found. The size of the cells growing on collagen I type was twice as
large as that of the cells cultivated on collagen IV type or in fibronectin. Irrespective of the substratum, up to 60-65 % of the cells had a rounded form.
The cultivation on collagens revealed the heterogeneity of keratinocytes both in the control cultures and under selection by adhesion time, while the cells grown
on fibronectin behaved as a homogeneous population. These results suggest that, contrary to fibronectin, collagens stabilize some physiological states of
keratinocytes corresponding to their interaction with extracellular matrix proteins in the organism.
Key words: adhesion, heterogeneity of cell population, human keratinocytes, collagen, fibronectin
Back
Contents
Main
