Clones defective in metabolic cooperation selected from a pluripotent feeder-dependent mouse embryonal carcinoma cell line.

Starting from embryonal carcinoma (e.c.) cells capable of extensive differentiation in culture, the technique of thioguanine 'kiss of death' has been used to select four independent metabolic cooperation-defective variants. The communication ability of these variant cell lines has been quantified by autoradiographic measurement of the transfer of uridine nucleotides, and also by an assay of the extent of junction-mediated rescue from ouabain toxicity by resistant fibroblasts. The cell lines which are defective in ability to transfer nucleotides, as measured by the uridine nucleotide transfer assay, are also defective in their ability to differentiate into endoderm and to form the cavitated 'embryoid bodies' which are produced by the parental cell line when grown in suspension culture. However, it is not clear whether this is related to the defects in metabolic cooperation, since clones which had been subjected to the same selective conditions but which cooperate normally have also lost some of the capacity to undergo this differentiation. Endoderm differentiation was classified into two categories, one being visceral endoderm and the other, primary plus parietal endoderm, on the basis of morphology, immunocytochemical staining for alpha-fetoprotein, and basement membrane formation. With the exception of correlations arising from variations between experiments and differences between cell lines, there is no statistical association between these two categories of differentiation. The formation of cavities was observed only in embryoid bodies with endoderm differentiation: the present of either category was a sufficient condition for cavitation to occur.