Factors influencing premature induction of UDP-glucuronyltransferase activity in cultured chick embryo liver cells.

Very young (5-day-old) chick embryo livers during organ culture on rafts over a chemically defined nutrient medium precociously develop, from zero, adult levels of UDP-glucuronyltransferase activity. Induction of enzyme does not require DNA synthesis or mitosis, or exposure to hormones, serum, or tissue extracts. Thus, this functional differentiation of embryo liver is apparently not dependent on cell proliferation or on extrinsic substances other than simple nutrients.UDP-glucuronyltransferase activity develops rapidly also in embryo liver cells cultured as monolayers or aggregates; specific activity of enzyme on a protein basis increases at the same rate in cells undergoing widely different rates of cell division, and net protein synthesis. These findings suggest that precocious development of UDP-glucuronyltransferase activity in chick embryo liver is due, not to incidents of culture, but to removal from the embryonic environment. Supporting this, chick embryo liver grafted to the chorioallantoic membrane does not develop UDP-glucuronyltransferase activity until subsequently transferred to an in vitro cell culture system.