Possible involvement of folliculo-stellate cells in the differentiation of muscle fibers during monolayer culture of pituitary cells.

A major objective of the present study was to examine the possibility that non-granular folliculo-stellate (FS) cells in the rat anterior pituitary are involved in the myogenesis that occurs during pituitary cell culture. Enzymatically dissociated anterior pituitary cells were fractionated by use of the Percoll gradient method. The proportion of FS cells was 5.8% on average before cell fractionation. After employing the Percoll gradient procedure, FS cells were enriched to a ratio of 12.2%. Three of five cell fractions were separately cultured, and the incidence of striated muscle fibers was quantitatively investigated. There was a good correlation between the numbers of muscle fibers and the proportions of FS cells in the fractions obtained from the Percoll gradient. These results suggest that FS cells are the cells that transform into striated muscles in pituitary monolayer cultures.