Fibrous astrocytes and reactive astrocyte-like cells in transplants of cultured astrocyte precursor cells.

Mouse neopallium was disaggregated at 3 developmental stages (E15, E18, PO) and grown in colony cultures for 7 days. On the seventh day of culturing the colonies of cells were transplanted into the cerebellums of neonatal mice. After 3 weeks the astrocytes within the transplants were identified with GFAP immunoperoxidase staining and by morphometric nuclear measurements of the GFAP positive cells. Cultures of E15 and E18 disaggregated neopallium gave rise to typical fibrous astrocytes in the transplants which were similar to fibrous astrocytes in the cerebral white matter of adult mice. Cultures of PO disaggregated neopallium gave rise to reactive astrocyte-like cells in the transplants which stained intensely for GFAP and had nuclei significantly larger than the astrocytes in the cerebral white matter of adult mice and in transplants of the E15 and E18 cultures.