Mechanism of age-dependent involution in embryonic chick notochords.

To study the possible mechanism of the age-dependent involution of the notochord, isolated mesenchyme-free notochords of chick embryos were cultured in vitro and compared with their counterparts in vivo. Two different aspects were evaluated: (1) DNA synthesis measured by [3H]thymidine incorporation and visualized by autoradiography and (2) cell death quantified by counting the number of pyknotic nuclei. The results demonstrate that [3H]thymidine uptake by notochords shows an age-dependent decrease in vitro as well as in vivo. The number of [3H]thymidine-labelled notochord cells, however, is higher in vitro than in vivo. At the same time, there is an age-dependent increase in pyknosis in the notochord in vivo and in vitro. So, during the aging process, the number of both pyknotic nuclei and of [3H]thymidine-labelled nuclei suggest a high turnover of notochord cells in vitro. From these results, we can conclude that the process of involution in aging notochord seems to be controlled by a programmed intrinsic process, which might be influenced partially by the microenvironment in vivo.