A Cellophane-Strip Technique for Culturing Tissue in Multipurpose Culture Chambers

A new technique for the cultivation of living tissues in the multipurpose culture chamber is described. This procedure employs strips of cellophane as the agent for anchoring tissue explants to the coverslip walls of the chamber and disposes of the time-honored plasma-clot technique. The primary advance embodied in this procedure lies in the fact that cells emigrating from so-cultured explants manifest themselves in a highly differentiated manner comparable to the cells of origin, whereas the outgrowth from the same types of tissue in plasma clots results in a more undifferentiated type of growth. Comparisons of outgrowths from embryonic thyroid, bone, and muscle (chicken) are photographically documented, and attention is called to certain cytochemical methods which further corroborate the differentiated quality obtained with the cellophane-strip technique.