Further investigations on possible correlation between agglutinability and osteoinductive properties of established cell lines.

Various cell lines, including SV40 virus-transformed human and mouse fibroblasts, established fibroblastic and epithelial cell lines, as well as their hybrids were tested for osteoinductive properties versus presence of Concanavalin A receptors. No correlation was found between the presence of these receptors and osteoinductive properties of cells. So far, however, no osteoinductive cell line was found without Concanavalin A receptors. Thus, the significance of surface properties of cells in transmission of osteoinductive signal(s) remains an open question. None of the fibroblastic lines exhibits osteoinductive potential, in contrast to the HT-40 and WISH epithelial lines.