Growth of Postembryonic Skin Epithelial Cells on Collagen Gels

A procedure to extract and to purify acid-soluble collagen from rabbit skin and a technique to prepare a semi-transparent collagen gel to support growth of postembryonic rabbit, mouse, and human skin epithelial cells are presented. When a suspension of trypsin-released epithelial cells is plated on a collagen gel, the reorganization and growth of cells takes place in 3 stages. In stage 1, the germinative cells attach to, and assume a polyhydral configuration on the surface of the gel. In Stage 2, the cells migrate actively over the surface of the gel and reassociate into a multicellular colony. In Stage 3, the cells both multiply horizontally and vertically to the surface of the gel.A quantitative method to study growth and metabolism of isolated epidermal cells and the factors which induce or repress epidermal growth in vitro are outlined