Clonal growth and mesenchymal differentiation of PCC3/A/1 teratocarcinoma cells in serum-free medium.

Clonal culture of PCC3/A/1 teratocarcinoma stem cells in serum-free medium has been achieved with feeder layers. Under this culture condition, stem cells effectively differentiated into various types of somatic cells, in particular chondrocytes and adipocytes. Myotubes and neuron-like cells also appeared, but infrequently. Embryonic endoderm cells were rarely observed. There appeared to be two stages in the differentiation process; In the early stage, only fibroblastic cells were found with the undifferentiated stem cells. In the later stage, chondrocytes and adipocytes predominated. Chondro-adipocyte differentiation occurred only after fibroblastic cell differentiation, an indication that fibroblastic cells may have an important function in chondro-adipocyte differentiation. Thus, the serum-free culture of PCC3/A/1 cells provides a suitable system with which to study the cell lineages and regulatory mechanisms of chondro-adipocyte differentiation.