Fibronectin binding properties of bacteriologic petri plates and tissue culture dishes.

With the aid of a monoclonal antibody-based ELISA assay, the fibronectin binding properties of poly(styrene) bacteriologic and tissue culture petri plates were studied. After treatment of the plastics with serum, both the rate of fibronectin binding and the maximum amount of fibronectin bound were found to be lower for bacteriologic than tissue culture plates. In contrast, when treated with purified fibronectin rather than serum, bacteriologic and tissue culture plates bound fibronectin equally well. Thus, serum proteins are more effective in inhibiting fibronectin binding to bacteriologic petri plates than to tissue culture dishes. The fibronectin binding properties of plastic substrata could be enhanced by oxidation with H2SO4 or diminished by dissolution and recasting of tissue culture dishes. Thus, the fibronectin binding properties of bacteriologic and tissue culture dishes can be interconverted. Plastics with enhanced fibronectin binding properties (tissue culture plates) were found to be hydrophilic and good substrates for cell attachment and growth while plastics with decreased fibronectin binding characteristics were found to be hydrophobic and poor substrates for cell attachment and growth. The cell-adhesive properties of bacteriologic and tissue culture plastic substrata were found to vary during incubation with cells. While cells remained firmly attached and spread on tissue culture plastics over a period of 5 days or more, previously attached cells gradually detached from bacteriologic plastics at incubation times beyond 12 h. The gradual detachment of cells from bacteriologic plates probably explains the poor properties of bacteriologic plastics for the growth of anchorage-dependent cells, in particular.