The growth of newborn rat tibiae in a continuousflow organ culture system

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A technique for continuous‐flow organ culture of newborn rat tibiae in a chemically defined medium is described. The growth characteristics of such bones during three days of culture, in terms of length, weight, hydroxyproline content, galactosamine content, and calcium content, are compared with corresponding growth in vivo and are seen to be reduced, especially beyond the first day of culture. Net synthesis of hydroxyproline and galactosamine during culture is demonstrated.It is shown that cultured bones are capable of incorporating labelled proline into hydroxyproline and labelled sulphate into bound form linearly for 72 hours, indicating continuing matrix synthesis in vitro.The implications of these findings are discussed.