Abstract
Retinal pigment cells have been grown as clones from single cells while maintaining their pigmentation and epithelial morphology. Pigmented cells have been subcloned 4 times, amounting to over 50 cell divisions, and have remained pigmented. Cells lose their pigmentation when grown as mass monolayer cultures (106 cells/60-mm Petri dish) or when grown as clones in a medium containing a high-molecular-weight fraction from embryo extract. These white cells repigment when grown as clones. The evidence suggests that cells may stably inherit the ability to express a specific differentiation for many cell generations, often without cell-cell contacts and interactions. However, the cellular microenvironment plays a crucial role in the final expression of the cell''s differentiation.

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