Studies on cell-coat macromolecules in normal and virus-transformed BHK21/C13Cells

Cells have been grown in vitro in the presence of radioactive precursors; much of the glucosamine label is incorporated into the surface material, part of it is then spontaneously released into the medium, part is readily removed by an EDTA wash, and further amounts may be released by a mild trypsin treatment or by a period of chase.The material in the EDTA was from variously labelled cultures has been fractionated by Sephadex G-200 chromatography; the excluded peak has been analysed by Sepharose 6B and DEAE-cellulose chromatography and by electrophoresis on large pore polyacrylamide gels. Its sensitivity to pronase and hyaluronidase has been determined, as well as its sugar, lipids and amino acid composition.Cell-coat material from Polyoma and Rous sarcoma virus-transformed cell lines failed to show significant differences in chromatographic properties and in sugar and amino acid composition. Minor but reproducible differences were found in the polyacrylamide electrophoresis migration patterns, when comparing glucosamine-labelled materials.